This week I started a new residential project in Brunswick West and for the first time in a long time I’m considering a taupe or beige paint colour for the walls. In the context of this client’s interior style goal and preferred colours scheme, it makes sense. So here’s how to choose the right beige or taupe paint colour for your walls.
Picking your perfect colour scheme
The house has a neutral colour palette. White, grey, black. White kitchen with grey glass splashback and dark grey pendants over the kitchen counter.
A dark grey sofa with a mix of cushions in black and white and white dining chairs. However, in the client’s bedroom there is a blue velvet quilt cover.
Based on these colour I was actually going to suggest a grey wall to make the white kitchen pop. But during our first meeting I learnt that my client would like to explore a different colour scheme.
Liking blue and greens, which helped make sense of the quilt cover, I suggested taupe for the walls instead of grey.
This was partly due to the client’s request for ‘warmth’ and because I thought we could do better than repaint the walls white, albeit a different white.
My client wanted ‘flare’ and painting the walls taupe was one way of adding flare and creating a ‘serene’ space.
Cool and warm taupes and beiges
Just like white and grey, you can get cool and warm taupes and beiges. For this client I’m considering a cooler taupe. Primarily to achieve a balance of warmth with the taupe but with a cool base to work with the existing grey.
If you’ve read my other posts on how to choose a grey wall paint colour or how to choose a white wall paint colour you’ll know I select three colours to test.
I jumped on the Dulux website typed in taupe and beige and selected the colours that came up that looked like they where warm with a cool base and ordered 8 samples.
My next step is to narrow this down to three colours to test under different light conditions. Light is what impacts colour the most.
So I test these colours under different light conditions such as natural light, and artificial light. Both low and bright artificial light and morning and afternoon natural light.
There is no perfect colour. And the colours I test and finally recommend to my client will look different in each room in their house. The key is to understand the options and choose the best colour that works with the light conditions in the focus room.
In this case the focus room is the master bedroom which is north facing and gets abundant natural light.
Just like selecting furniture for your home can be confusion, so can choosing a colour for your walls. But knowing the colour scheme is a good first step, knowing the interior style goal is also really helpful.
As some interior styles lend themselves naturally to particular colour schemes. This is the progress so far on this project on how I choose the right beige or taupe paint colour for my client’s walls. Stay tuned for updates.
