Decorating Your Home Made Easy at Ace

Get the Paint, Hardware and Tools You Need to Decorate Any Room

Looking for a way to completely change the look of a room in weekend? We have one work for you...paint. Ace carries Benjamin Moore paints that will have you redecorating in no time.

Transform any space into your dream room with professional decorating points and tips on how to develop a color palette. Then coordinate colors and accessories for a pulled together look that is your own personal style.

Starting Points for Decorating a Room

Draw up a list and start writing down the basics - which key elements (couch, rug, flooring) will stay, and which will go.

Determine a budget. Consider which changes make the most impact for your dollar, such as paint, slipcovers, and fresh accessories.

Generate ideas by creating a portfolio that appeals to you. Collect images from magazines, fabric, and paint swatches, pictures of favorite vacation spots, flowers from the garden - anything to which you're drawn. Don't worry about creating a theme or coordinating colors just yet.

Determining Your Color Preferences and Developing Your Color Palette

Take a look at your collection of items and consider the following:

• How do you want to feel in the room? Calm? Energized?
  
• Are you drawn to colors that are warm (reds, yellows), cool (blues, greens), or neutral (whites, beiges, grays)?
  
• Where do your colors fall on the color wheel?
  
• Do you prefer many colors or various shades and tints of a single color?
  
• How does your color selection work with existing elements in the room, such as the floor or large furnishings?

Begin grouping colors to see which ones appeal most to you.

Editing Your Collection of Ideas

• View all samples together in the room to see how things will look with existing elements and actual lighting conditions.
  
• Consider the size and scale of your room and its furnishings.
  
• See the following pages to determine which color scheme (monochromatic, complementary, analogous, or triad) dominates your collection. You can use this scheme as a base concept for creating a color palette for your room.
  
• Sample paint colors on the walls to see how they work with the other decorative elements in the space, and to determine the overall feel or mood of the room.
  
• Keep the concepts of harmony and balance in mind when editing your ideas.

Your final choices should please your eye, feel balanced, and create the mood or feeling that you want.

Color and Paints

Color is a dynamic element in your home's décor, tying together room furnishings and accessories, as well as creating just the right mood, whether restful or revitalizing. Rely on Benjamin Moore to take you from inspiration to results, capturing the look and feel you want for your home. Benjamin Moore is the color leader with over 3,300 colors in our collection, along with the ability to match any color you want. We offer a myriad of tools to explore color and make your selections easier, including color chips, color inspiration brochures, our Personal Color Viewer^®, and convenient Color Samples.

Sheen Selection

Paint comes in different sheen levels that impact both the aesthetic and functional aspects of a room. Sheen affects the amount of light reflected from the painted surface, hiding or highlighting imperfections and affecting color perception. Sheen levels can also affect the washability of a surface, so traffic and usage can play an important role in determining sheen choice. Benjamin Moore offers five sheen levels: flat, matte, eggshell, pearl, and semi-gloss. Generally, the higher the sheen level, the easier the surface is to clean. However, the proprietary formulation of Benjamin Moore paint allows for all of our finishes to be washable and remain beautiful in any room of your home. Some tips on sheen selection include:

• A flat or matte provides excellent depth of color and is ideal for less-than-perfect surfaces and easy touch-ups. Flat is also the preferred sheen for ceilings due to its nonreflective qualities.
  
• The subtle sheens of eggshell and pearl reveal color with a softly polished glow and provide an easy-to-clean surface that is ideal for kitchens and baths.
  
• Semi-gloss is particularly durable and stands up well to repeated cleanings - a must for moldings and trim. Its soft sheen provides a beautiful frame to a flat or matte wall, adding a subtle touch of reflective light to any room.

Personal Color Viewer

The Personal Color Viewer (PCV) is an online color visualization tool that lets you experiment with color combinations and palettes. We offer two PCV versions that allow you access to the entire Benjamin Moore color collection. Our complimentary web version (go to benjaminmoore.com) provides a library of images you can use to experiment with color. The professional version (available for both PC and Mac OS X users) allows you to download your own images to the program. You can purchase the professional version either online or at your local Benjamin Moore retailer.

Color Samples

Benjamin Moore offers Color Samples, a collection of 260 of our most popular, fashion-forward, and designer-endorsed colors in convenient two-ounce containers. Color Samples cover a 2' X 2' area with two coats of paint, offering an ideal way to test your color selections.

(source: Benjamin Moore)

Decorating with Paint

Energize that outdated den. Invigorate your bedroom with a fresh new perspective. Create a whole new space for your children. The ideas are here, waiting to be discovered. Our inspirational room designs are a series of room makeovers created to stir your imagination. You can use part, or all of our ideas, or maybe just use the inspiration to come up with a whole new approach of your own. It's your space. Transform it with your own personal sense of style.

Click here for photos and ideas for decorating with paint in kids' rooms, kitchens, bathrooms, living rooms, dining rooms, hallways and stairways.