Different people can react to blue in different ways. For some, blue is the color of optimism, reminding people of a sunny day or a serene lake. For others, blue can imply sadness, as in “singing the blues.” In Western cultures, blue is also considered to be a male color, contrasting with pink for girls.

The shade of blue you choose to work with will be very important. Remember you will be looking at this color for a very long time. Consider factors such as the size of the room, the lighting, and what the room will be used for.

If you choose to work with a dark, bold shade, make sure that the room will be well lit, preferably with a dominant source of natural light. Be sure to use complimentary colors for the trim and baseboards. You can use bright red or yellow to spice the room up, but be warned that this kind of energetic color scheme can grow weary on the eyes with time and is probably best reserved for a game room or something similar. White or lightly tinted greens can be used to keep the mood calm and relaxing. You may also choose to use a lighter or accented shade of blue for a similar effect. If you are working with a dark blue, it will probably be wise to paint the ceiling white or cream to avoid feeling confined.

Lighter shades of blue are perfect for bedrooms, kitchens, and bathrooms. Light yellow, dark blue, and white are good complimentary colors to work with. Alternatively, you might choose to go natural and work with wood trim. For the same reason, blue is also a good color choice for rooms with hard wood flooring.

A final word of advice. Don’t get too crazy. If you choose to work with contrasting colors, make sure that blue remains the dominant one. You should rarely work with more than two contrasting colors. Always bring paint chips into the room, close your eyes, and think about what the room will look like when it is finished. The most common color scheme will be light blue and white. Be cautious if you choose to go with something else.

This post was written by Carter Bowles, owner of AboutBluePaint.com, a website devoted to the subject of blue paint, including its history, the pigments used in its creation, and the discovery of a new kind of blue paint.

Part 1:

Part 2:

We commonly refer to the color that occurs between red and blue, purple.  Purple has long been associated with royalty, nobility, luxury, and ambition stemming from the fact that in ancient times, only the very rich could afford it. The 4th century B.C. historian, Theopompus, reported, “Purple for dyes fetched their weight in silver” at market.  Just as it did in ancient times, purple continues to convey wealth and extravagance. The fact that is is a very rare color in nature adds to its mystique and desirability.

But, use purple with caution.  No matter the intensity you choose, it is not a color that can be thrown into a room with a nonchalant attitude thinking that it will work with anything (like pale yellow).  The lighter hues of purple evoke romantic and nostalgic feelings.  Light purple is a good choice to add a feminine touch, and it works especially well in the design mix of children’s rooms.  I recommend that you use dark purple sparingly as it evokes intense emotions; not necessarily positive.  For a pleasant color marriage,  mix with shades of green.  Both light and dark shades of purple work nicely with the fresh, hopeful hues of green.

Some of my favorite accents to help you lend just the right  touch of purple to your spaces are show below.  Retail prices are shown.  Always contact Carla for a price quote and lead times on all fabrics, rugs, lighting and furniture.

First, you need to determine the scope of your project. This will allow you to look for the right professional to complete it.

If you have a small painting project (for example, one or two bedrooms to repaint), hiring a solo painter-operator could be the best choice. Because owner-operators carry virtually no business overhead (no staff, no office, no commercial vehicles, etc), they can get your small project done for relatively cheaper than a large painting company.

Larger projects, however, are a different story. These need to be done in a time efficient manner and single painter-operators simply do not have the labor or resources to complete such large projects to the industry standards and on time. Such large jobs require the use of a trained painting crew, proper painting equipment, and a good project leader, or foreman. Typically, large painting jobs include multi-room or whole interior painting and exterior painting jobs.

Once you have determined whether you should hire a solo-operator or a full painting conractor firm, there are other things you need to pay attention to.

First, when getting quotes for your house painting job, make sure that each contractor outlines the scope of the work. You want to be sure that the estimates include the same service items from each of the contractors. Things like the type of prep work that will be done, how many coats of paint will be applied, and what brand of products will be used, need to be consistent across all painting estimate that you get. This way, when you are later going over the proposed prices, you are comparing “apples to apples.”

Many times, inexperinced or non-professional painters will quote the same job for a substantially lower price than any of the legitimate contractors who gave you quotes. Homeowners often get very excited about the immediate savings they would incur, and rightly so. However, as the old saying goes, “you get what you pay for.” More often than not, these extremely low bidding painters – in order to save money – skip crucial steps in the prep process, use the cheapest products they can find, and perform shoddy work. In the end, the paint job will not last and the homeowner will have to get their place repainted prematurely.

To determine whether or not you are hiring a legitimate painting company or someone who will ruin a paint job, make sure to check for the folowing items:

1) Business registration. Is this is a real company and will I be able to hold them responsible in a few months time if the paint job fails? Unregistered individuals can take you money and virtually disappear and you would have no recourse options and noone to hold responsible for shoddy workmanship.

2) Insurance. Does this company carry insurance? In case of unfortunate events, you want to be sure that your home is protected. If a ladder accidentally falls on your car or breaks your window, you need to be sure that the company has liability coverage to cover for these unfortunate events.

3) Examples of past work and customer testimonials. Don’t just take the painters‘ word for it, find out for yourself what others have been saying about their painting and look at pictures of work they have done in the past.

4) Lastly, a legitimate painting contractor should never ask you for a substantial amount of money upfront. Typically, 10-15% upfront is considered the norm to cover material costs, but if the painter asks you for anything over that amount, you should be wary.

Let us know how you like it. For more, visit our YouTube Page or SuperPages Local Painters Listing.

“The most personal decision involved in any interior or exterior painting project is color choice. If green is your favorite color, you will be drawn to that color family when you go to your local paint store. If you like blue, you will probably find a place for it somewhere in your home. It’s important to follow your instincts when selecting paint color. Decorating your home with your favorite hues is what gives your home its unique personality.

But while it is true that there are no hard and fast rules about paint color selection, there are certain color ystems that are appealing to the average eye. Understanding them can help you make the best decisions on color choice.

The color wheel helps define colors that work well together. Whether you use a single color, or a family of complementary or contrasting colors, understanding color use lets you make the right color choices for your home.

Every color bears some relationship to all other colors, but most successful color combinations will fall into one of the following categories listed below. The illustration below depicts the color wheel, a tool to help you understand the relationship between colors. Use it to select colors that will look great on your home. Work it to create almost limitless numbers of attractive decorating schemes.

Color Schemes

• Monochromatic. This color scheme employs only one basic color, but in several different values. An example might be a home exterior with light blue siding and dark blue shutters and trim.
• Adjacent. This system combines two or more colors that are located next to each other on the color wheel—blue, blue violet, and blue green, for example. To get the best results with this system, try to select colors that do not have the same value and intensity.
• Complementary. This type of scheme uses colors that are opposite one another on the color wheel, such as red and green, or yellow and violet. If you choose this system, you might want to select a subtle color and a dominant color, to prevent the colors from clashing.
• Triadic. A triadic scheme employs three
colors that are equidistant on the color wheel, such as yellow-orange, blue-green, and red-violet. For best results, you should choose one dominant color and use the other two as subtle accent colors.

Color Vocabulary

Hue – The basis of a color, such as red or green. Lighter or darker variations are still the same hue. Thus, a light red and a deep red are of the same hue.
Value – The lightness or darkness of a color. Light blues, medium blues, and dark blues have the same hue but different values.
Shades – Those colors with values closest to black, the darker blues, the darker reds, and so forth.
Tints – Those colors with values closest to white, the lighter blues, the lighter reds, and so forth.

Tone – A color’s intensity, brightness or dullness. When gray is added to a color like red, it dulls the intensity and renders it a darker tone.

Assess the Color Environment

As you plan your interior or exterior paint job, look at the environment in which your color will appear. On the inside of the home, the color environment is created by the overall appearance of the walls and woodwork you will he painting, the furnishings in the room, and the hues in adjacent areas. To make the best color choices, take in the whole picture.

Likewise, when doing exterior painting, be sure to take into account the fixed colors of your home—brick, stonework, and the roof color, for example. The most flattering color treatments will be those that work well with these existing elements. Consider choosing a color that will pick up the color of a non-painted area, the brown that appears in your brick, or a green highlight from your stonework, for example.

Also, remember that no home exists in isolation: Its appearance is affected by the appearance of neighboring homes, and even the color of shrubs and trees around it. You probably don’t want to paint your home the same color as your next-door neighbor’s, but you probably do want to select a hue that will look attractive alongside it.

Furthermore, be aware of the fact that certain colors look more at home in certain surroundings. For example, earth tones are always a good choice in natural, wooded areas, but they may not he the best choice in other settings.

Another factor to consider is the architectural style of your home. Oftentimes, a home looks most attractive when painted in period colors. Formal Colonial or Greek Revival homes look great with white exteriors and muted interiors, while Victorians come to life with bold color treatments that accentuate ginger bread and other interesting architectural details.

Fail-Safe Color Choices

If “safety first” is your motto, and you simply want your home to look neat and freshly painted, there are certain color treatments that will look good on almost any home. A near-surefire approach when doing interior painting is to paint the walls a neutral color like beige, and the ceiling and trim white. In fact, if you keep the trim and ceiling white, a wide range of colors will look attractive on your walls.

Similarly, the safest approach to exterior painting is to use white, beige, or another neutral color on the siding and a darker accent color on the trim. Dark brown is often a good general-purpose color for exterior trim.

Color Trends

Commenting on the popular paint colors of the moment is, at best, a risky business. They can change at any time. With that proviso, it is possible to say that preferences are far more predictable when it comes to exterior paint colors than interior colors. For the past 200 years or more, white has been the top color choice for home exteriors in the U.S. And a recent color study, conducted by the Rohm and Haas Paint Quality Institute indicates that white or off-white still ranks at the top of the list. Earth tone browns, tans, and beiges have always been popular, and they remain so today.”

Finding a professional house painter can be tough. Anyone with a brush and a pick-up truck can call themselves a professional. But, how do you know who’s any good without being an expert yourself? How do you make sure they can do the work you need done?

This report will help you ensure your painting job gets done right the first time. It will show you the things you need to know to get you painting project done professionally at the correct price. Most importantly, you will learn the basic questions you need to ask any contractor before you hire them.

What You Need to Know Before You Hire a Painting Contractor

How Do I Make Sure I’m Hiring a Professional?

Before you schedule an appointment with a painting contractor, you need to make sure you are doing business with an established and professional painting company. Because anyone can claim to be a professional, check their complaint record with the Better Business Bureau (BBB) first. Paint contractors who do sloppy work, leave your

home or yard a mess, or don’t come back for any necessary touch-ups will get poor reviews with the BBB.

As a professional painting contractor, Yaros Painting strives to provide 100% customer satisfaction. There are not BBB complaints filed against our company and we have a plethora of positive customer testimonials and references available upon request. We are a registered, fully insured business and can provide a certificate of insurance and business license to back up our claims.

How Do I Know They’ll Show Up on Time and Stick to Scheduled Dates?

Unprofessional painting contractors are infamous for being late to appointment, starting the job past the scheduled date, and not finishing work on time.

At Yaros Painting, we guarantee that our painters will never arrive late without calling to notify you first. Additionally, you may reach a live person to discuss any scheduling issues by calling our office at any time.

How Do I Know I’m Getting a Fair Price and That the Final Bill Will not Go Over the Initial Quote?

According to the National Association of Consumer Agency Administration, the home improvement industry received the most complaints related to contractor’s unfair billing practices. Typically this happens when an un-established painter or a sub-standard painting contractor offers to do your job for a very low price with some money down. After they get your deposit, they end up using the cheapest material and labor they could find, doing a sloppy job or not completing the project at all, and at the end, completely cutting off contact with you.

If you have a large-scale painting project, make sure to get a quote or proposal written on the letterhead of an established local company detailing what is to be done and for how much. An official, written quote establishes a firm price and won’t allow you to be overcharged at the end.

At Yaros Painting, we realize that fair pricing is one of your top concerns. We establish firm quotes for our customer and stick to our initial price. We will never charge you more than we quoted you.

How Do I Know Your Painters Won’t be Rude, Vulgar, or Make a Mess?

This is a very serious question to ask. Contractors who hire cheap and unskilled labor are concerned more about their bottom line than they are about your safety and the security of your home. Be sure to check if the contractor has policies regarding how their employees behavior and appearance and what precautions they take to protect your home.

Yaros Painting takes your comfort and safety very seriously. All of our painters have a presentable appearance and are individuals your family can feel safe with. Our employees never smoke, play loud or foul music, use offensive language, or leave a mess in your home or on your yard. All of our workers are experienced in the area of home improvement and apprenticed in painting.

Property protection is one of our top priorities while working on your project. We always use drop cloths in any areas we are working on to protect your property. Plastic covering are always used to shield your carpets, furniture, or any other belongings during the painting process.