Painting in the last decade has become more adventurous and daring.  Faux painting, trompe l’oeil, and the use of color to create a change of mood or emphasis on a singular wall, once thought as unconventional, now are commonplace techniques.

One of the problems that many people encounter is coordinating the colors in fabric for window coverings, furniture, and accessories to compliment the wall color or to match it.  MDM has found that it is easier to pick out the window coverings and then have the paint matched to the colors from that sample, rather than the inverse.  Of course, you can pick out a color to paint your walls, but 9 times out of 10, the task of matching the color in the fabric or the blind to a particular wall color is more arduous for a number of reasons:

• Lighting in a room becomes another step in the process since it will affect color values in the wall application, not  making it impossible, but more difficult to match.

• Depending upon the design in a fabric window covering or color of the blind, there are many hues offered of each color palette that can be deceptively close as seen by the  naked eye.  Oftentimes, this slight difference is not noticeable until one paints an entire room and then installs the blinds, shades, drapes or other window covering. 

• Finding a fabric design or blind that matches the color of the paint on the walls exactly can be difficult, even  impossible if the walls have not been recently painted since the color will change over time.

Thus, comes the chicken and the egg question, do you match the paint to the fabric or the fabric to the paint?  Here is what MDM recommends:

• By choosing the blinds, window coverings, or upholstery first and the paint last, you can coordinate the look that you want in the room with the samples, and select the final mood  of the room with the selection of either the coordinating or accent paint, and /or texture and paint technique. 

• Many paint dealerships now have equipment that can analyze a particular color of a blind or in the fabric and match the paint using a computer to obtain precisely that color or hue and replicate it.  This takes the guess work out of this process freeing the DIYer to spend more time on design and selection, and less time on paint chemistry. 

• Finally, use your DIY paint chip ring [mentioned in an earlier post]  to begin this process of textile and paint selections.  This is an invaluable tool that can serve as a jumping off point to coordinate the colors within your present home in addition to testing some new ideas. 

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