David Bromstad-Inspired Paint Rules To Follow When Updating Your Home

Paint is hands down one of the fastest, most affordable ways to breathe new life into a space. In just a couple of coats, you can transform and refresh your home, change the feel of a room, and tie your color palette together. But here's the kicker. Choosing a paint color can quickly go from fun to finicky. Faced with an almost unlimited choice of shades, how do you zero in on the ones that will not only rock your boat but also complement your home, furnishings, and existing finishes?

Fortunately, you don't have to be a master of color theory to pick the right paint. You just need some actionable, practical rules, and who better to turn to than David Bromstad? HGTV's King of Color has spent most of his career transforming spaces, and he has a whole lot of hue- and paint-related hacks that just about anyone can implement. Over the years, Bromstad has shared numerous nuggets of design wisdom that can make selecting the right shade for your walls a breeze. From knowing when to go dark on a ceiling to how to successfully pull off a retina-searing palette, read on for some of his best paint rules.

If you're not afraid of color and don't want to tone down your palette with neutrals, Bromstad has another beautifully simple tip. Instead of sticking to all-neutral décor, you can temper boisterous paint colors by incorporating equally attention-grabbing tones in your design, but strategically. In the same consultation, the HGTV host said, "My other trick is to use even more saturated colors as accents. Fuchsia pillows, tangerine bowls, and a neon yellow vase or two will make an otherwise potentially crazy shade seem toned down in comparison." To implement this approach, you don't have to go out and buy large furniture items in loud chromas. Accent colors are meant to be the final touches to your space, delivered in small doses. You can incorporate them in low-commitment pieces that you can easily switch around, such as books with bright covers, throw blankets, lamps, and little knick-knacks.

Not sure what colors to pair with your bold paint choice? If you want to create a sense of visual balance and inject a touch of contrast, combining complementary shades on the color wheel is the way to go. Decorating with a color wheel can sound complicated, but it's actually dead simple. All you have to do is find the color that is directly opposite the one you painted your wall with, and then sprinkle it around the room in a couple of decor pieces. For instance, if you have a warm green paint color, shades of pink will pop against it. You can also go in the opposite direction and create a monochromatic palette by adding varying shades of your wall color as accents.

After an iron reign, beige has officially dethroned the color gray, which has kept homes locked in a cool color palette for well over a decade. And there's no shame in loving this new neutral that's in town. It's classic, warm, calming — and layering cream tones is a pretty effortless undertaking. But tons of beige can also get a little too warm and relaxing, resulting in a flat color scheme. If you're looking to liven up a beige-on-beige-on-beige space, Bromstad suggests bringing back some of that gray. "To break free from your beige prison, I suggest making a big move: Paint the walls a mid-tone gray. It's a soothing color that will make the space feel sophisticated, he said during his color consultation. Even though gray isn't the "it" neutral, this doesn't mean designers and homeowners aren't going to use it, especially in intentional ways that break up warm tones. The HGTV star told Metro Weekly, "You can't mess up gray because every color goes with gray. Black goes with gray, brown goes with gray, orange, green — there's not one color that doesn't go with gray. Gray goes with gray. Gray's my go-to color."

While we might not be doing many gray-on-gray moments anymore, going with mid-tone gray walls isn't going to make your home feel dated. If you've got a lot of beige happening, all it's going to do is cool down the room, add dimension, and inject depth into the space. Not a fan of mid-tones? Feel free to go bold and moody by painting your walls charcoal. According to findings from Zillow, rooms painted in deep, charcoal shades of gray could increase your home value by up to $2,512. If you prefer a bright and airy space, you can also choose a very light gray that borders on a cool white.

Light woods have dominated interior design, with darker tones being dubbed drab and dated. But this is slowly changing. Dark woods are a great way to add depth and mature sophistication, and they're becoming popular with designers once again. If you have walnut-stained trim running through your home, don't feel like you have to refinish or paint over it. Providing you choose the right wall color, you can make it an attractive feature. Bromstad's rule for dark trim is that it has to be paired with light walls. When asked what to do with dark woodwork in his color consultation with HGTV, he advised, "Dark woodwork can be incredible, but only if the wall color majorly contrasts with it; otherwise, it'll look like a haunted house. That's why I would go with white ... The lighter the walls, the more high-end the trim appears." Not a fan of white? No problem. Bromstad is the last person on the planet to discourage people from using color. "If you love color, choose a pale shade, like a gray-blue or muted green, which will freshen up the dark wood," the HGTV host added.

Of course, this isn't a set-in-stone rule. If you want to paint your walls a dark, moody color, don't let dark trim stop you from achieving your design vision. But you might want to consider painting your trim the same color as the walls. This can create a more enveloping, cocooning feel, which is usually the goal in a moody space. A room done completely in charcoal gray, navy blue, or forest green can feel more intentional, current, and curated, and less like the Addams Family residence. If you want to create subtle dimension, go for flat paint on the walls and a sheen finish on your trim.

If your feeds are flooded with design inspiration showcasing bold interiors full of daring color combos, you may feel a sense of pressure to make every room a big moment. But having unexpected colors everywhere isn't compulsory, and bright walls can be trickier to decorate around. If you're still training your eye, sticking to neutral finishes can make it much easier to build a successful color palette. During his interview with Metro Weekly, Bromstad said, "There are not a lot of rooms I paint bright colors. You'll see a few I've done here in Miami where I've painted the walls all bright colors, but then we need to tone it down with neutral furniture. But if you're a novice or just getting into the world of design, pick a nice, neutral color."

It's hard to go wrong with all-neutrals, and it also gives you the flexibility to start incorporating more adventurous hues in small, low-commitment items. Adding in a red vase, a couple of burgundy books, and a burnt sienna throw blanket to a neutral space can instantly pep up the color palette and give your eye some points of interest to land on. If you change your mind and decide red isn't the right accent color for the room, swapping these items out will be effortless, and you won't have to waste money buying new furniture or spend time repainting.

The default color that most people turn to for ceilings is generally white. But there's no rule saying you can't paint it a color. Sometimes referred to as the fifth wall by interior fundis, your ceiling offers a great opportunity to make a statement or tie in other elements of your design. One approach is to paint it the same color as your walls. Pale shades will reflect more light, but there are also times when going ultra-dark can trick the eye into thinking there's more room overhead. This is because dark colors add depth. However, this trick won't always work on a low ceiling. Instead, it might have the opposite effect and make it feel like the ceiling is closing in on you. Not sure which route to take? Bromstad has a brilliant tip. In an interview with Fox 4 News, he shared this rule of thumb: "If you have taller than nine feet, then you can go darker on your ceiling."

If you're toying with the idea of a dark ceiling that's full of drama, there are a few ways you can execute the look. One of the simplest is to choose a moody hue for the whole room, wrapping all the walls in the same color to create a cozy, engulfing effect. This will also distract your eye from where the walls meet the ceiling, making the room look even taller. For a monochromatic look, you can opt for different shades of the same color on the walls and overhead. If you want to create some visual tension, go for contrasting colors.

One of the common questions that crop up around color palettes is how much continuity should you have between rooms. Must every room have a similar color palette, or can each one have its own unique combination of shades? Unsurprisingly, David Bromstad has a simple answer. During his interview on Fox 4 News, the HGTV host said, "You can have a different color in every room, but ... you should repeat at least one color that's in a room. So, say you have these colors going in, but you don't want all of those colors in your bedroom. Maybe take the grays, the blues, and the charcoals, and then that's still going to create some unity that goes into the next room."

In other words, you don't have to stick to one palette across your whole home, but you will want to let one room help inspire the other. For instance, you can channel the accent color from one area onto the walls of the next. The colors don't have to be an exact match, either. Before you start running around your home with a color picker app trying to minutely match RGB values, feel free to take a more easy-going approach. Color picker apps can be a great tool, but you can definitely create cool color palettes by loosely matching similar hues. Using the same trim color throughout can also be a great way to create continuity between rooms.