Making It Simpler To Find A Fresh Color Scheme This Season

Nearly one million gallons of paint are wasted each week-or about a billion dollars annually-often because homeowners are unsatisfied with paint color selection. With leading paint manufacturers' color palettes bordering on 2,000, selecting the right color for your decorating project this season can be a challenge. Fortunately, having the right decorating tools to work with can help make it a pleasant experience.

Before you start to see "red" because of the overwhelming choices of paint colors available, you may want to visit popular Web sites that offer help in coordinating colors and choosing from this season's colors.

A fun example is The Voice of Color site designed by Pittsburgh Paints (www.voiceofcolor.com). There, you can discover a modern palette for your home by playing the Color Sense Game and by learning more about the latest color collections.

The game gathers information about you-from favorite scents to dream vacations-to help learn which color collections best represent your personality. It then refers you to one or two of The Voice of Color Harmony Collections.

For color inspiration, each collection presents many different palettes that offer unique five-color decorating chips to help coordinate wall color with furniture, flooring and window treatments.

For example, let's say the Color Sense Game said the collection you most closely matched was Al Fresco. Inspired by nature's palette, the colors in this collection symbolize renewal and embody thoughts of springtime. You may choose to paint your walls with vivid greens such as Antique Moss and Dark Sage while accenting the room with the Al Fresco palette's paler shades of blue in your pillows or furniture.

Once you choose a color palette from within the collections, you can experiment by virtually painting home interiors and exteriors.

Using The Visions at a Glance feature, you can either upload a picture of your own or experiment with one of the site's sample rooms. You can apply different palettes to see which you prefer, and when you choose a favorite you can print it out or save it to a disc for future home improvements.