Sherwin Williams | How to Choose Paint

Hello, I'm Jennifer. Today's video is going to be part two of some of my very favorite paint colors. We are going to take a look at Sherwin-Williams paint today. So let's get started. So several weeks ago I did a video on my favorite Benjamin Moore colors and I had several of you ask me could I share my very favorite Sherwin-Williams colors. So that's what I'm going to do today. But before we get started I would like to share with you some really great painting tips that I hope will save you both time and money. Tip number one, I call it the white paper test and that is sometimes when you're looking at a color this is actually in the white family. It looks really really light but if you hold it up against a stark white piece of paper then you're going to see the intensity of the color. So tip number two and this one is super cool. If you go on Sherwin-Williams website they have what's called color snap visualizer. You type in the color you like, choose a room you'd like to see it in and it pops that color up and you can switch colors in and out and what's even neater is if you go to the bottom there's a little button and it lets you see what this paint color is going to look like in the daytime and what it's going to look like in the nighttime. Tip number three is about storing your paint. Now when you're done painting a room and you only have a little bit of paint left in that big gallon container, if you go to the home improvement store they have empty small quart cans. Pour your paint in there, pop the lid on and you have a whole lot less clutter in your garage. Now let me share with you three tips that my viewers told me about in the last video. These were super impressive. Melissa Griffin, she says that for her touch-up paint she buys the little empty two ounce bottles and puts each room the paint in that, marks it, keeps that in her house and that way she can pull them out and touch up the walls super easy. Berlene Howard, she told me that her painter tells her to keep her paint from drying out that before you put the lid on put a little saran wrap over the top and then pop your lid on. Now in my last video I was talking to you about touch-up paint and how when paint's been on the wall for a long time you know it can kind of get a little dirty even though we're really clean. If you slap that fresh coat of paint on there it's just going to stand out. So what I like to do is water it down just a little bit and apply it all around that little mark so it all feathers in and blends in. Now Susan Pike told me two tips that were super smart. She said whatever application you use to put that paint on the wall the very first time make sure you do it the same the second time. So if you rollered it on make sure when you touch up you use a roller. If you brushed it on make sure you touch it up with a brush. I had some really smart viewers and I really appreciate you guys sharing that. So tip number four, let's talk about sheen. You have your high gloss that works really well on trim and molding. Semi-gloss, a little less shiny. Again, works really well on trim and molding and then you have satin. I love this sheen in a kitchen, a bathroom, a laundry room because it cleans really well. Eggshell is my top favorite for the main sheen throughout the house. It's not too shiny and again it cleans really well. Now I said this in my last video that in my opinion flat paint should only go on the ceiling. I have so many clients that have brand new builds and the builders have used flat paint and within months they're so frustrated because flat paint tends to mark super easy. I mean you can just walk by it with a suitcase and you've made a mark on the wall. Now having said that, Sherman Williams has a flat washable paint. I have not used it and I would love to hear anybody who has used it what your thoughts are about it because this may be a serious game changer. Tip number five. This is amazing company called Samplize and you go online, you put your color in and they will send you a sample of that paint within days for $5.95. The sheet of paper is 12 by 12. When you get it, you can peel the back off of it. It can be stuck to your wall so that you can see how it looks both in the daytime and the night. Be sure to do that. Comes right off. No more sample paint cans. I mean it is such a smart company. Tip number six. On a paint deck or if you get a larger sample of the paint card, there's going to be three letters on the back. LRV and there's going to be a number beside them. LRV stands for light reflective value. Now in the last video, I explained the two paint terms. There's hue and that is just what the color is. Hue is orange. Hue is purple. The hue is red. That's just the color. The value is the intensity of the color. So the LRV, light reflective value, now it goes from zero to a hundred. The lower the number, the less light that's going to be reflected. The higher the number, the more light that's going to be reflected. So look on the back of this card. This color is tricorn black. The LRV is three. That is a low number. That means you're not going to get much light reflecting on this card. This one is mindful gray. The LRV is 48. So you're going to have some reflective light. The third one is alabaster and it's an 82. That means it's going to reflect a lot of light. So paying attention to the LRV helps you understand how a color is going to respond in a room. One other tip. Cole, one of my design assistants, shared this with me and she had heard that if there's a certain paint color that seems popular, either bloggers are blogging about it, it's on Instagram or Pinterest. That means not only is that color just popular, that means that color has worked. So don't reinvent the wheel. I thought that was brilliant. Before we jump into all the colors, I'm super excited because I had a few Instagrammers and bloggers agree to let me share their photos of some of the colors that I'm going to talk about and how they used it in their space. Okay, first color we're going to talk about is white. White can be tricky. When we moved into our house, we had a red brick house and we knew we wanted to paint it white and I came home with 10 different samples of white and yes I tested each one of them until we got the right one. Now when it comes to white paint, most of my clients are going to ask me what white paint to choose for trim. So whites will be either they will be a cool white or they're going to be more of a warm white. And before I tell them what color I think they should pick for the trim, I usually like to know, well what color are we going to paint on the wall? So looking at these two colors right here, this is alabaster. It's more of a warm white. Snowbound is more of a cool white. So what color are you going to paint the room? This color is stardew and this color is oyster bay. Oyster bay is a little bit more warm so I'm going to pair it with alabaster and the stardew is a little bit cool so I'm going to pair it with the cool white. Pairing those together will get the combination perfect. The next color I want to talk about is green. So for a very light one that's it's actually green, blue, gray. I know you're thinking pigolene but it is such a beautiful color. It's called sea salt. Let me share this picture with you from Stephanie. This is building our humble home. She used this color in her living room and I thought it just looked beautiful. It's got a beautiful coastal vibe. It's a very happy color. You can also use sea salt in a laundry room or a bathroom. So for another light green, not quite as light as sea salt, is oyster bay. I love that color. A medium green is acacia haze and then for a darker green I like retreat and usually when I'm picking darker colors I am going to pick a color that is very muted and it's muted because it's got a little bit of gray in it and to me that just once it's on the wall it isn't- have you ever painted a room where you're like oh my goodness I don't know what I was thinking? That's why I try to choose muted colors even if they're dark I try to keep them muted. For a light blue there are two that I really really like. One is called stardew and the other one is called krypton and I'm so excited. Take a look at this. This is Chrissy Marie. She has used this color in her kitchen and it is beautiful. My two favorite medium blue colors are called rain and storm cloud and yeah I thought about that later but that helps me remember it and then my favorite three dark colors. One is called indigo batik and let me show you a picture. This is not a finished bathroom but this is my client's bathroom. They're wallpapering and wanted a really dark blue and it's so far it's looking absolutely beautiful. Another dark color I like is distance and the third one I like is called gale force. For a few of my favorite gray colors I have- one is super popular. It's called light french gray. Absolutely beautiful. Very airy and light. I would use this in a bedroom in a heartbeat. For the second color repose gray, take a look at this. This is Jenna from Jenna Kate at Home. She used this color in her kitchen and her living room. Now here's another tip. She took the repose gray in her living room and she actually lightened it 50 percent. So if you've got a color you like and say in one room you don't have as many windows, lighten it about 50 percent. I have done that before and people swear it's the same color in both rooms. My third favorite gray is mindful gray. Here is a picture of this color on the outside of a home. This is Amanda from Life Among Cedars. The mindful gray just looked warm and inviting. If you want to try a super super light gray color there's one called nebulous white. I don't know why it's named that because it really has a gray in it but take a look at this picture. This one is from Spacelift Staging and Redesign and they used it on the board and batten. My goodness I just thought this room was beautiful. My three favorite grayish colors, they're a little gray, a little beige, hence the word grayish, is mindful gray, worldly gray, and agreeable gray. Those are all three super great colors. Now for a more neutral color, Cole used this color in her living room and here's a picture of it. This is called natural tan. She loved this color because she didn't have a lot of light in the room and this color did not make her room look dark. Another great light beige color is accessible beige, neutral ground, and urban putty. Urban putty is going to be a little bit darker but it's still a very beautiful color. I've seen it done on kitchen cabinets as well. So my last favorite color I want to share with you are a few black colors. One is called peppercorn. Now I did say black but it's really actually a really really dark gray. Here's a photo of it. We used it in one of our client's offices. We just did a focal wall. It turned out so beautiful and then once we put the artwork on that color it just made it pop. Loved it. The second black color I want to share with you is tricorn black. Let me show you this photo. This is again Amanda from Life Among the Cedars and the cute puppy sitting in the front is Jax. She painted her front door the tricorn black and it turned out stunning. My last third favorite black color, it's going to be iron ore. Don't get intimidated by dark colors. It will be amazing how even if you just use it on an accent wall that it really will make the room very rich. Take a look at this picture. This is Kate at Little House of Four. She used it in a bedroom and I thought it was lovely. Paint is tough. I don't care how long you've played in it. It's just tough but I'm really hoping that a lot of these suggestions will help cut out the frustration for you guys. Be sure to subscribe to my channel because we're going to have more videos coming out later. Everybody stay safe and stay well. Have a great day.