How to Choose the Right Yellow Paint

Yellow can be the most fabulous, warmest and zingiest color paint for your walls. If you choose the wrong shade, it can fry your eyeballs and make the room look dreadful. Choose the right shade of yellow paint.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

1. First, realize that yellows on those little paint chips are often deceptive. What looks like a delicate, buttery yellow can turn out like a school bus on your walls. When choosing yellows, restrain yourself.

2. Like all colors, yellow has undertones. Some have a red-orange cast, some more green, some a hint of brown. Gather together many different color chips so you can compare them and really see the underlying tone. This will make a big difference to your finished project.

3. Spread the paint chips out in the room you are going to paint. Look at the colors in the room. Are there a lot of cool colors like greens, blues and grays? Or is the palette warmer with spicier red and brown tones? With yellow, you want the color to match those, not complement. Choose warm yellows for warm-toned rooms and cool yellows for cooler-colored rooms.

4. Pay attention to your lighting at night. While natural daylight is cooler and won't make yellow paint so intense, most incandescent bulbs have a very yellow cast. At night, this will intensify the paint color.

5. Invest in a test quart (some paint stores sell little, two-ounce testers) and put the paint directly on the wall. Then, live with it for a day or so. This is cheap insurance against buying expensive paint, doing all the work and then deciding you hate the result.

Tips & Warnings

• If you are going for a very strong yellow, ask the store how well it will hide. Most paints in a "neutral" or "accent" base will require up to six coats of paint.
• If the trim in your room is painted off-white, be aware that it may look gray or dingy next to yellow walls. Pure white or a very pale creamy white looks best. Hold the paint chip up to your woodwork to see how it looks.