At the risk of sounding either sexist or hen-pecked, my solution is to find yourself a good wife and let her make these decisions. While I am sure that there are many men who make excellent interior decorating decisions, I have yet to meet one. Just look at the current TV ad (it is either for one of the big box do-it-yourself stores or a paint manufacturer) where a couple is thinking about re-decorating by painting a room. The husband is content with the status quo while the wife dismisses the current color as “unimaginative”. The husband dutifully follows her to the store where she ends up choosing the color. The commercial ends with the happy couple enjoying their beautifully painted room.

For men, a house is usually a structure that protects him from the elements, gives him a place to store his things and a safe place to eat, sleep and relax. It is usually a woman – wife, girlfriend, mother, sister-in-law, etc. who re-decorate to create a warm, homey atmosphere.

For myself, I like a well decorated home. I can tell if the paint color in the kitchen, or any other room, is the correct color. What I cannot tell you is what color to paint it. I can tell you after the fact whether or not the color selected is good or bad. I am just as good at this as I am on Monday mornings when I can tell the coach of the weekend's losing team exactly what he should have done to win the game the day before.

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Six years ago I purchased the townhouse that my family and I live in. Even though the house was 20 years old, all the walls and ceiling's in every room were painted new house white. I didn't care for this but, since I could never figure out what colors to repaint the rooms, I left everything as it was when I purchased the home. I re-married three years ago and, after things settled down, we were ready to begin re-decorating. My wife thought about colors in her mind while I went to the Internet to find a site where I could load photos of our kitchen and try different colors. Behr and Sherwin Williams both had good sites, but you had to use their model rooms to experiment with different colors. A Google search finally led me to a New Zealand company called Resene which offered a free, down loadable program that lets the user upload pictures of the interiors and exteriors they want to paint and then lets them try the paints on the walls in the pictures. While I was still trying to learn how to use the program, my wife suggested we go to Home Depot. While she studied the color charts, I occupied myself with pushing the cart through the paint aisles, picking up the brushes and other materials we needed. She finally selected a color called Festive Green which was a pleasing color, but I could not imagine how it would look in our kitchen.

I trusted my wife's judgment and we purchased two gallons (our kitchen is a walk-in) of base paint which the clerk then mixed to Festive Green. We proceeded to paint the kitchen Festive Green and it looks great! Since, the living-dining-kitchen area is open, the rest of the area is brightened by the kitchen while, at the same time, being a different color, the kitchen is now defined by the color of its walls rather than just by the fact that the stove and refrigerator are located there.

Now, just like the husband in the TV commercial, I too, can smile and say how truly happy I am with my wife's choice of paint color for the kitchen.