Adding color to your home’s design is remarkably impactful on the atmosphere. In fact, designers believe that the best way to completely change the environment is by painting your walls. With this in mind, you can see how important choosing the right color can be. However, there are millions of colors to choose from, and this task can feel overwhelming. When trying to select a color for your room, there are four basic rules you should keep in mind. With these in mind, your search can become a little less random and more focused on the right color choice for your home.

Color Inspiration

You will want to have general inspiration going into your project. What colors do you like? Do you have a style or design theme that you would like to mimic in your home? What colors are used as inspiration in those themes or styles? These questions can all help you dial in the choice of where to begin. Do you want a warm-toned atmosphere or a cool-toned atmosphere? Perhaps you are just looking for a neutral color tone in your room. Your color inspiration can come from many different influences. Determine what you want your home to look like before beginning your search.

Match Your Current Furniture and Belongings

If you still have no idea where to begin, use your current furniture or belongings to create a color theme. For instance, maybe you have a blue couch or beige lamp shades. Your personal belongings can be a great start at picking a color. Use these elements to help determine a theme. Even if all your furniture is a different color, the choice you choose should help harmonize your furniture.

Team Effort

If you do not live alone, you should not make this decision alone. Check with your spouse or your roommates because paint is there to last. You want to make sure everyone agrees before making the commitment of painting a room.

Test Your Paint on Your Walls

Lastly, paint can look completely different on a swatch in the store than in your own home. Most stores will have overhead fluorescent lighting. Take your paint choices home and put them on your walls. Look at them throughout the day. They may look different with the influence of natural lighting. Make sure the color you choose agrees all day with your home’s theme.

These rules can help narrow down your decision. Yet, all in all, choosing the right color comes down to you and your personal preferences. Try picking several colors or shades. Decide which one works best with what you want to accomplish in your home.

Italian provincial furniture captures the rustic elegance of the Italian countryside. While it is often mistaken for the curvier and more decorative French provincial, this style boasts straight legs and classic lines with painted areas. It is often created in white or ivory with a pecan fruitwood finish. It looks lovely in either a formal or semi-formal setting with fine wood or travertine tile floors in a creamy white.

Here is a mini-glossary of key terms for Italian Provincial furniture:

Acanthus:  A type of leaf detailing seen in classic furniture. Look for it on carved wood furniture, metal bases and in mirror frames.

Armadio: A storage cupboard with doors, more commonly called by the French name, armoire. It works nicely for extra storage of linens, toys, sweaters or televisions and electronics.

Credenza: A buffet table with doors and shelves.  Traditionally used in a dining room, these work great in a living room or family room under a flat screen television.

Cassone: A low, usually wood, storage box.  It’s perfect for keeping blankets at the end of the bed or shoes in a mudroom.

Commode: A chest of drawers.  Think outside the bedroom for creative uses like in an entry with a mirror above or for storing games in the family room.

Console: A hall table, sometimes with a lower shelf.  Consider one for the entry with a mirror above it.

Gilt: Gilt refers to something being gilded with gold.  Look for giltwood mirrors to add sparkle and glamour to a bedroom, bathroom or foyer.

Gueridon: A small table with straight legs and often small medallions at the top.  Use these as a side table or even a bedside table.

Millefiori: Literally means “a thousand flowers” and is a pattern most commonly seen in Murano or Venetian glass works.  Millefiori bowls or vases make colorful accent pieces.

Pietra Dura: An inlaid stone table top.  Pietra Dura tables usually have metal bases, making them perfect for an outdoor living space or garden room.