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Have you been putting off painting that kitchen/bathoom/bedroom/ whatever because you know how hard it can be to choose colors? IT CAN MAKE YOU CRAZY!

There have been so many times that I have picked a color (after agonizing over it for a week or so), bought the paint, slapped it on the walls, stepped back to admire my handywork and heard myself say “Yuck! It looks like baby poo/swamp muck/a 60’s flashback!”

Well, now there is help at hand.  Before you go and plop down that $20-$45 for a can of paint you can do search for your perfect color online, and even test them in cyberspace rooms. I realize that many paint manufacturers have small paint sample packets that you can test on your walls, but many times they don’t make sample packets of the colors I like OR they have run out of the most popular choices. However, with the online paint selection tools you can choose a pre-specified color pallete or let the artist in you go wild by trying new color combinations that WOW you (and can easily be changed).

Here are some the paint selection tools I have come across in my internet journeys; some require you to register to use them, but are really fun. If you know of any more that I don’t have listed here, please let me know and I will post them.

1. Behr Color Explore
2. Sherwin Williams Paint Visualizer
3. Dutch Boy Color Simplicty Tool
4. Bob Villa Paint Designer
5. Benjamin Moore Personal Color Viewer
6. Lowes’ Paint online

In addition, I came across this great Colorcharts.org database (powered by CBN) of all digitally certified colors. It has over 80 paint manufacturers listed and all of their digitally certified colors. If you have a colorchip from a paint company that is not in your area, you can find that color in their database, ask it to match the color, and it will tell you all other other digitally certified colors that match it from other paint manufacturers. Fun, eh?  This site has definitely made it to my “favorites” list!

Photo by Sharyn Morrow, used under creative commons licensing.