8 Paint Colors That Feel Fresh in Every Season

Before you choose a paint color, consider these tips to help you find a shade that you'll love in summer and winter.

Keep the undertone in mind

 

"The key is to look beyond the main color and focus on its undertone," Hudson says. "This is the subtle base that determines whether a simple gray feels cool and modern or warm and cozy. You want a color with a quiet warmth or a complex undertone—the kind that feels comforting on a chilly day and fresh and airy in the summer. Hues like a greige with a whisper of brown, or a dusty blue with a hint of green, will adapt to the shifting light and never look bleak year-round."

Use accessories to punch up (or down) the color intensity

 

The trick to adding a seasonal touch to your rooms? Swap out the accessories. "I like to address seasonality with textiles, changing up throw blankets, comforters, bed coverlets, and throw pillows," says Amy Krane, architectural color consultant at Amy Krane Color and host of the design podcast Let's Talk Color.

Amy Wax, color expert and author of Can't Fail Color Schemes, recommends using different intensities connected with your chosen paint color. "If you are a fan of oranges, feel free to play with light terracottas and peach tones in the warmer months, while layering oranges or rusts over the same decor when the cooler months come around. Colors that can easily transform from one season to the next are blues (cool baby blues to classic navy blues), whites (clean and bright to charcoal grays), greens (light minty greens to rich hunter greens), and even browns (soft beiges to chocolatey browns)."

Test out samples before you paint

 

The most common reason people regret their paint color choices? They didn't bother to check out a paint sample first. "Choose a color for your room and make sure you look at it during different times of day," Wax says. "Although this does not account for the change of lighting in all of the seasons, you will most likely experience a variety of warm versus cooler lighting conditions over several days."

Keep your local climate in mind

 

The color palette you use in New England may look out of place in a home in Florida. "I look more at overall climate and geographic region to inform my color choices for walls—not seasons," Krane says. "If you're down south, where it’s always warm and sunny, this should influence your color choices both from the standpoint of overall vibe as well as the effect of the sun on the colors. Bright white, more saturated colors, and what you might think of as tropical colors are more apropos. Dark, moody colors just don’t feel right."

Think about when—and how—you use the room

 

A dark, dramatic hue may work better in a cozy reading nook than your kitchen, for instance. "Concentrate on the overall feeling you want to have in the space as well as the type and how much natural light you get to help you pick your wall colors," Krane says.