Step 3: Style Your Palette

Once you’ve selected a main color and accents, it’s time to match that palette to your decorating style. To do this, pick out a paint chip that includes your main color, teal. As you move up the paint chip, that teal gets lighter as it is tinted with more white. As you move down the strip, the teal has more black in it and gets darker. These different tints and shades coordinate with different styles of decor. If you gravitate to traditional, choose the darker, muted versions of your whole palette to help capture that traditional look. If your taste is cottage chic, go for a lighter palette. The extra white in those hues will suit your whitewashed furniture perfectly. But if your home is casual contemporary, you can use the palette as is. Those true colors will pop!

Jennifer and Kitty O'Neil (www.ONeilSisters.com) are certified in Color Design by Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute. They are frequent contributors to HGTV.com as well as Crafts ’n Things, Woman’s World, and Create & Decorate magazines.