Interior Paint Ideas for a Fabulous New Look

These interior paint ideas help you make a dramatic difference to your walls quickly and easily...while not compromising on health and comfort. It's like your wall changing into a new outfit. And as you're creating a new-look, beautiful wall using paint, you might as well do it as safely as you can.

Safe Paints for You and Yours

Years ago you had to worry about lead in paint. The culprits you have to watch out for now are VOC's, or volatile organic compounds. The EPA says that indoor air quality is one of the top five hazards for people. Paints and finishes you have are among the top reasons. Paints you use can release low-level toxins for years after application. So it pays to do your interior paint ideas homework and find safe paints.

Wall Paint Topics

Some of the wall paint related issues you may want to consider include...

best interior paint
choosing interior paint colors
faux wall painting
interior house paint
interior metallic paint
wall glazing
wall texture
wall stencils

Choosing Paint Colors - Trying Before Applying

How would you like to see the results before you start painting? It's all fine and dandy to try choosing a color with those little swatches, but it's hard to imagine what the little swatch of color will look like all over the wall(s). Here's where SwatchIt comes in. You take a digital photo of your room and submit it to SwatchIt for what your room will look like in the chosen colors.

Another cool resource is Colorcharts. One of its services is that you can see standard colors from many different paint manufacturers. You can also download their Selector software that will allow you to do essentially the same thing as SwatchIt above. There is a free trial or you can purchase the software.

You could also use the Color Visualizer and Color Selection Tools at the Sherwin-Williams website. It's not perfect, because the scenes are not from your own home, but you can sure get a good idea of what the color would look like on a wall. Try different colors out, make a list of them and take a ride over to the closest retail outlet to grap some samples to bring home.

Backing up a bit, a resource like the The Color Scheme Bible by Anna Starmer or Color Schemes Made Easy by Shelley Stewart will really help you with your choice(s). Then you can take better advantage of something like SwatchIt mentioned above.

Where to Buy

You can undoubtedly find paint on your own at local national paint franchises as well as at some of the big box stores. Sherwin-Williams offers their Harmony (no-VOC) and Duration (lo-VOC) interior paints. You can find interior paint ideas including color at their website.

Aglaia Natural Paints is another source for safe paints. For those of you fluent in your Greek mythology - I confess not to be - you remember that Aglaia, meaning brilliance, was a daughter of Zeus and she had two sisters together with whom she made the Three Graces. Aglaia Natural Paints provides a full declaration of all ingredients for each of their products, so you know exactly what you are buying.

The Old Fashioned Milk Paint Company provides safe paints as well. I have this humorous image of painting with milk and it then "souring" on the wall, but apparently that is not the case! Their products have no VOC's or hazardous air pollutants. This kind of paint is great for people with chemical sensitivities. They have a pretty good network of dealers throughout the U.S. If you're not near one of these, they do offer online purchasing.

BioShield Paint Company is a subsidiary of Eco Design Company and offers not only safe paints, but other safe household products. There network is not quite as extensive as the above milk paint company.

And If You Hate to Paint...

Some of us like coming up with interior paint ideas and the results of a new paint job, but not the actual painting. Ask people you know if they've have been happy with a painter. Or you can go online to a site like Angie's List where customers rate various services including painting. Another source is Need Contractor.

How to Search for Interior Paint Ideas

Tried some search engines already? Check out these searches by clicking on them:

Google : Yahoo : MSN : Visimo : IxQuick : DogPile

Open Directory : Yahoo Directory

Choices, Choices, Choices

I love options, and you may too, but sometimes too many can get a bit out of hand. Maybe you narrowed your interior paint ideas choices to a reasonable number. Want help making the final choice? Try Choose It.