From a Value Painting Blog contributor:

Sooner or later it’s going to happen to you, and it doesn’t matter whether you’re from New York or Nashville… sooner or later you’re going to find yourself painting a room in your home or apartment with your wife.

This past July it was time to paint our kitchen, and while I’m not what you’d call a professional interior designer, I thought that I had some clue as to what the color scheme of our kitchen should look like.

 

Wrong!

You see my wife was also involved in this little painting project, and I quickly began to discover that even though I’m the one who does most if not all the cooking in that kitchen…this was her domain, and her kitchen, not mine.

I quickly discovered that what I thought about as far as color and overall kitchen design didn’t matter one iota. But I was bound and determined to make my opinions known…whether they mattered or not (which they didn’t, of course). When it comes to painting a room that is critical to the look and feel of your home, as a member of the male gender, there may not be a whole lot for you to do except just nod your head in approval or shake it in disapproval depending on the cue from your wife.

However, there are a few things that the both of us did together as we selected the color scheme for our kitchen that you’ll probably be able to do as well.

 

Honey To Do List

Take a ride to your favorite paint store – you can drive, right? Take your wife on a romantic date to the nearest Home Depot and take a look at a few of the pamphlets they have there for popular design ideas on painting the kitchen and help her find some inspiration. And then? Taco bell to go.

 

Take a few color palettes home – choosing a color for the kitchen isn’t like leaving a cave and whacking the first female passing by with a club. Although incredibly effective early in human history, it’s a little outdated now (not mention a felony).

Instead, get some options. Get comfortable with a few colors and start eliminating what doesn’t seem to work for her…remember what you like doesn’t matter more than likely, just be ready to support her!

 

Get the actual paint samples – honestly selecting a color for any interior painting project in your home is never easy, and in many cases winds up coming down to compromising between the color you absolutely love vs. what will actually work for the design space that you’re working in.

This is why a few samples of paint chosen from one of the color palettes that you both took home originally is going to help her in the decision making process.

So after your spouse has narrowed the color choices down to two or three choices bring them home, see how they look on the nearest kitchen wall, and wait until she decides what she likes best.

 

Purchase the paint and tools – when your wife has finally made the decision on her colors, it’s time to go get the paint along with all the tools you’ll need to get the job done properly. This is where you come in. If you are a DIY’er, you’re ready to go grab the paint and necessary tools to run the project. If you want to go get a hard hat as well to make yourself really feel in charge, we definitely encourage that as well. Yeah, painters don’t wear hard hats but I bet she won’t know that.

Or if you would rather someone else just handle it so you can relax and watch some TV, there’s always that option as well. You’re not fluffing on your responsibility to execute the plan, you’re delegating. And as we all know, great men always delegate. In fact, brush up on how to hire the right local painting contractor during commercials. That’s called multitasking. Look at you go.

 

Tools of the Trade

Don’t worry, we won’t leave you without a few tools of your own first to make this a success.

1) As we said, selecting colors can be hard. Even though it’s not really your choice, doing something helpful such as printing out something on tips to pick out kitchen colors could really help her out. Not only that, it’s a pretty sweet gesture as well.

Bonus points: read it as well and subtly let her know you did. That will let her know you care about what she cares about. Heck, let her know you even read this article.

 

2) Now this is a real tool. Use Sherwin-Williams color visualizer to see how your room will look with different color schemes. You can upload a picture of your desired room and then use their tools to virtually paint your room. Pretty cool, right?

Bonus points: take and upload pictures for her and then hand it all over. If you don’t have a camera use your smartphone. She’ll be surprised and delighted at such a thoughtful deed. Happy wife, happy life.

 

3) After you find out which color she likes, drop it in the Color Scheme Designer and find some accent colors for her to use as well.

 

Romance Your Wife Through Paint

So, that’s pretty much it.

All kidding aside, this is an opportunity to help and support your wife in something that is probably incredibly important to her. Take a little time to love on her and do this for her.

After you do that, report back to us here and drop a comment in the comments section and let us know how it went. You can also post comments here about the article such as questions, or…just comments. We’d love to interact with you.