List your rooms and say which ones open into each other. You get one palette for the whole house, in one undertone: the wall color that flows through the shared rooms, a lighter and a deeper color for the rooms behind a door, one accent, and one trim white and one ceiling white for every room, each with its real paint code. It is free and needs no sign-up.
Your whole-house palette
Natural Linen SW 9109 through the house, Greek Villa SW 7551 on the trimWarm, light · 4 colors + a trim white + a ceiling white · Sherwin-Williams
Room by room
The rules behind it
- Three to five wall colors, one trim white and one ceiling white, all sharing one undertone, all warm or all cool (Composite Paint).
- Each color has a job: the whole-house neutral (LRV 60–75) for the halls and the open core, a lighter one (75–85) for small or dark rooms, a deeper one (25–50) for a dining room, a study or a bedroom, one accent, a trim white (82–90) and a ceiling white (88–92) (Composite Paint).
- Start with the common areas, the living room, the kitchen and often the dining room, and pick one trim and ceiling white and stick to it (The Color Concierge).
- Work within a color family, not exact matches: the rooms relate because they speak the same language (Welsh Design Studio).
- Test every color on a big sample in the room, at the hour you use it: screens and light change every color.
Quick answer: a whole-house palette is three to five wall colors plus one trim white and one ceiling white, all in one undertone. One whole-house color goes on the walls of every room you can see from the others; the rooms behind a door take a lighter or a deeper color from the same family, and one accent ties them together. The builder picks each from Sherwin-Williams, Benjamin Moore or Behr with its real code. It is free and works in your browser.
How to use the whole-house color palette builder
- List your rooms and say which ones open into the shared space (you can see one from the other) and which sit behind a door.
- Pick warm or cool, or read it from a photo of your room: the photo stays on your device, and its main colors decide the undertone.
- Pick light and airy or deeper and cozy, your floors, and the paint brand you will buy.
- Read the palette: six colors, each with its job and its code, then every room’s walls, its 30% and its 10%.
- Paint a color on a photo of your own room with the free room paint visualizer, or see the whole room repainted by the AI. Copy link keeps the palette.
The six jobs in a whole-house palette
A palette works when every color has a job. These are the roles and the light reflectance values (LRV, 0 black to 100 white) from Composite Paint’s whole-house guide; the builder picks each color inside its band.
| Role | LRV | Where it goes |
|---|---|---|
| Whole-house color | 60–75 | the walls of the open rooms, the halls and the stairs: the color that connects the house |
| Lighter color | 75–85 | small or dark rooms behind a door: a bathroom, a laundry room |
| Deeper color | 25–50 | a bedroom, a study, a dining room behind a door, and the 30% of the open rooms |
| Accent | varies | the 10%: pillows, art, a front door, one feature wall |
| Trim white | 82–90 | every baseboard, door and window frame, the same in every room |
| Ceiling white | 88–92 | every ceiling, in a flat finish |
Inside each band the builder takes the brand’s color closest (by CIEDE2000, the paint industry’s color-difference formula) to a soft warm or a soft cool neutral at that lightness. The LRVs are the ones the brands print; for Behr and some whites, which print none here, it is worked out from the color and marked so.
Three worked examples
Sherwin-Williams, warm, light. Natural Linen SW 9109 (LRV 66.3) through the kitchen, the living and dining rooms and the hall; Choice Cream SW 6357 in the bathroom; Smoky Beige SW 9087 on the bedroom walls and the kitchen’s lower cabinets; Green Onyx SW 9128 as the accent. The trim is Greek Villa SW 7551 and every ceiling High Reflective White SW 7757.
Benjamin Moore, cool, light. Gray Cloud 2126-60 through the open rooms, Full Moon 2119-70 behind the bathroom door, Shadow Gray 2125-40 in the bedroom, and Andes Summit CSP-600, a deep blue-gray, as the accent. The trim is Decorator’s White OC-149 and the ceilings Distant Gray OC-68.
Benjamin Moore, warm, deeper and cozy. Dusty Road 1017 (LRV 63.62) in the shared rooms, Colonial Cream OC-77 in the small rooms, Alexandria Beige HC-77 in the bedroom and on the island, Mohegan Sage 2138-30 for the accent, the trim in Pink Damask OC-72 (one of Benjamin Moore’s own warm whites) and the ceilings in White Opulence OC-69.
Common whole-house color mistakes
- A different color in every room. Painted room by room over the years, a house feels like eight places. Keep the walls to three to five colors.
- Mixing undertones. A cool gray hall next to a warm beige living room is what makes a house feel disjointed. Pick warm or cool once.
- A new white in every room. One trim white through the whole house holds it together even when the wall colors change.
- Choosing from a screen. Screens and light change every color. Paint a big sample in the room and look at it in the morning and at night before you buy.
- Starting with a bedroom. Start with the rooms everyone sees, the living room, the kitchen and the dining room, and let the rooms behind doors follow.
More on one color: the trim color picker and the ceiling color picker compare whites, the greige and beige paint finders list every neutral, and the room color palette generator reads one room from a photo. Planning the work too? The whole-house renovation planner prices every room.
Plan the furniture in the same rooms: the free 2D room planner draws each room to scale, in feet or centimeters, to furnish and share.
Open the 2D plannerRead next
- Sherwin-Williams whole house colors that flow from room to room
- Open floor plan paint colors that keep spaces from fighting
- Warm neutral paint colors that never read cold or boring
- Greige paint colors that settle the warm versus cool debate
- Paint colors for north facing rooms that fight the gray light
Whole-house color questions
What is a whole house color palette?
A small set of colors chosen to live together across every doorway: three to five wall colors that share one undertone, one trim white and one ceiling white. One whole-house color connects the rooms you see from each other; the others are lighter or deeper versions and one accent.
How do I choose a whole house color scheme?
Start with the common areas, the living room, the kitchen and the dining room, and choose the whole-house color for them. Then pick one trim and ceiling white, a lighter and a deeper color in the same undertone for the rooms behind doors, and one accent. The builder above does it from your rooms.
How many paint colors should a house have?
Three to five wall colors, plus one trim white and one ceiling white. A small home can run one neutral, one trim white, one ceiling white and a single deeper color for a bedroom.
Should the trim be the same color throughout the house?
Yes, as a rule: one trim white through every room, on the baseboards, the doors and the window frames, holds the house together even when the walls change. White cabinets look best the same as, or close to, the trim white.
What is a warm neutral color palette?
Neutrals with a yellow, red or brown undertone: creams, beiges, warm greiges and taupes, with a warm white on the trim. Pick Warm above and the builder keeps every color in that undertone; pick Cool for grays and blue-grays.
Is there a home color palette generator?
Yes, this one: it builds the palette for a whole house from your rooms, with real Sherwin-Williams, Benjamin Moore or Behr codes. For one room from a photo, use the room color palette generator.
What color should the ceiling be?
Usually a flat white, light enough to reflect the most light (an LRV of about 88–92), the same in every room. Some painters use the trim white at half strength; the builder gives you one ceiling white for the whole house.