The Color Book

Rating:
Summary: A Book to Help You Choose Hues
Review: This book can save you hours of frustration, quarts of "test" paint and about 500 trips to the hardware store for paint chips. It's a simple but ingenious solution to testing color schemes: pages are cut into thirds - floor, mid-room and ceiling - so you can flip back and forth to see how a light wood or rose-tinted floor might look next to oxford blue or butter yellow walls. The book gives you a chance to play with living room, bedroom, bathroom and kitchen schemes, with a total of 11,264 color combinations. Flipping back and forth can be addictive; the resulting combinations surprising. More than half of all wall paint purchases are in white or off-white, simply because people can't make up their minds. Let this book help you safely make colorful decisions to rise above the majority.

Rating:
Summary: Great packaging. Short on content
Review: This book is attractive and cleverly packaged but not very helpful in terms of choosing color schemes for the home. I enjoyed flipping through the pages, however, the "rooms" are inexpensive sets that do not resemble actual rooms (especially the kitchen section) and the colors combinations are unconventional and unlikely choices. Also, the book refers to only one paint brand, and it is not one of the finer brands on the market. I would not recommend this book as a paint guide.

Rating:
Summary: A fun toy but not all that useful
Review: This was fun to play with, but the "rooms" shown are obviously unreal, which reduces the appeal of each. And there isn't any help in figuring out how to use the color variations. I sat here and flipped back and forth, entertained for awhile before I realized that this wasn't really going to help me figure out colors for my house. There's nothing about working with pattern, either. Clever but not worth the money.

Rating:
Summary: Don't waste your money
Review: This was great for a 5 year old playing house but cannot seriously be used for any type of color choosing. If the pages were able to be removed and switched around it might be slightly helpful for comparison but I'd rather spend the money on a fan deck at the paint store or buy a couple quarts of paint and try them on my wall.