Puzzled about paint colors? Try turning to these pages

Washington Post

It may be true that painting is an easy, inexpensive way to improve a room. But here’s how it becomes less easy and more expensive: when you repaint the same wall four times because you can’t decide if the living room should be green to match the rug, or blue to match the sofa, or yellow to match the adjoining rooms, or tan to match anything.

Who among us has not stood frozen in front of a wall of paint chips at the store and finally walked away defeated? Here are some new books that make an earnest effort to help us narrow the choices.

“Color at Home” by Meg and Steven Roberts (Stewart, Tabori Chang, $29.95) is a vibrant photo gallery of exteriors and rooms. Some are safe and familiar, but the best are unexpected. There is very little to read here, and who needs it? The photos are so clear and crisp that the reader becomes an instant expert in the differences between moss and mint green or Wedgwood and powder blue.

There is more text in “Farrow Ball: The Art of Color” by Brian D. Coleman (Gibbs Smith, $60). But most readers will put up with a few more words because the photographs are so big and lush.

A warning: Farrow and Ball is a British paint and wallpaper company, so make no mistake that this book is, unabashedly, product promotion. And the paint is at the high end in price. .

“Paint Style” by Lesley Riva (Firefly, $26.95) is also a promotional book, this one from the makers of Benjamin Moore Paints. But it’s more about painting techniques than actual color, making it a resource for the DIY painter interested in stencils, glazes, stippling, color rippling, painting floors and faux finishes.