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Testing The Best Paint Colors For Your Ceiling with Helpfull

When it comes to do-it-yourself home improvement, selecting paint colors for your project is one of the most fun elements of the process. With two simple apps, anyone can get immediate feedback on their color choices - for any project.

July 31, 2024
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Testing The Best Paint Colors For Your Ceiling with Helpfull

When it comes to do-it-yourself home improvement, selecting paint colors for your project is often one of the most fun - if not daunting - tasks any homeowner will come across.

Color choice plays a massive impact when it comes to the overall feeling one gets from being in a room. Even something as choosing a new ceiling paint color can breathe new life into an otherwise tired and low-energy room.

You might be thinking - "My plain white ceiling could use a new coat of paint - but what color should I paint my ceiling?"

When choosing a new ceiling paint color for your home, there are many factors any homeowner should take into consideration before committing paint to a wall. The colors of the existing furniture, the furniture style, the longevity of the ceiling paint, plans for future home improvements: all of these elements can impact the outcome of your project. With how time-consuming the ceiling painting process is, and the permanence of the act - it’s vital to sure that you’ve picked a color you’re going to like for years to come.

For new homeowners or seasoned property holders, utilizing just two simple applications can transform the way you approach home decor.

With Sherwin Williams ColorSnap® Visualizer and Helpfull’s intuitive image-comparison surveys, getting quick and ready feedback on your color design choices is a breeze.

Using Sherwin Williams ColorSnap® Visualizer To Test Ceiling Paint Colors

Sherwin Williams ColorSnap® Visualizer To Test Ceiling Paint Colors

While you’re likely to find several applications that perform a similar function, the Sherwin Williams ColorSnap® Visualizer is the most intuitive and efficient way of testing out colors for any of your home improvement needs. This is by far the preferred method if you want an easy way of testing ceiling paint color for your home.

To get started with the app, all you need to do is choose whether you’re using the website’s sample room to test your paint color - or if you’d like to upload photos of your own rooms into the visualizer.


ColorSnap® Visualizer

The Sherwin Williams’ application allows you to upload and test colors on any photo you’d like. Once you’ve uploaded your desired photo to the site, a brief walk-through tutorial will point out the different features of the tool. The masking tool feature allows users to draw out areas of the room they would like to test colors on; once a selection of the room (the ceiling in our case) is mapped out, the user can quickly test out different colors by dropping swatches into the designated areas.

The ColorSnap® Visualizer allows users to browse and save a selection of color swatches to a palette for easy use. Once the walls are painted, users can press the “download” button to save a photo that features the color mock-up they want to consider for testing.

Once you’ve got your color selections saved, you’re ready to get testing!

Survey #1 - Testing The Best Ceiling Paint Colors With Surveys

When it comes to choosing colors for a home improvement project, consider the audience your choices will be exposed to. Are you someone who regularly entertains company, or are you someone who prefers to only play host to a select number of family and friends?

Unless you live alone, it’s important to choose a color that won’t turn off your guests. A ceiling can impact the “vibe” of a room in many ways. A new coat of paint can hide visible imperfections in the room, or accentuate your new crown molding. Lighter color ceilings open up the room, while a darker color can make the room feel tighter and constricted. A bright white ceiling paint can make a room feel sterile and clean, while less traditional colors have more of a presence in the room.

With Helpfull’s image comparison surveys, you can test your preliminary color choices in front of an audience of your peers. Getting concise and considered feedback on your interior design choices is one of the best ways to ensure you’ll pick a color that has a lasting, positive impact on your room decor.


preliminary color choices with image comparison survey
color options for a living room ceiling in a cozy inner-city apartment


For our first example, we tested four color options for a living room ceiling in a cozy inner-city apartment. Within a half-hours time, one color was chosen by our community of Helpfull pollsters. They were able to give us their insight as to why they felt Pediment was the best color choice for our new ceiling, and why the other choices failed to compete.

With the ability to swap our palette on the fly and test new designs, choosing paint colors becomes a liberating experience; who knows just how many trips to the hardware store we’ve been spared thanks to these apps?

Survey #2 - Ceiling Paint Color Advice From The Helpfull Community

When surveying a general audience, you’re getting exactly what marketing companies and research firms spend millions of dollars a year to get - a consumer testing group that samples the general population. With digital surveying, getting feedback on painting your ceiling can be done for a fraction of that price!

When you ask the Helpfull community for advice, keep in mind you’re sampling directly from a community of your peers - people just like you, who are eager and ready to give you advice on how to best paint your ceiling.

Unbiased strangers always give the best advice. A diverse polling base ensures you’ll receive a myriad of anecdotes and comments to mull over during your decision-making process. With the ability to objectively view your design considerations, you can be sure that the advice you’re receiving is genuine and considered.

We want the community to share their unfiltered thoughts on the various styles we’ve considered, so we can find the absolute perfect color for our new ceiling.


 opinion on perfect color for new ceiling
pollsters opinion on lighter color the Smoky Blue color swatch


In less than a half-hour, the polling community came to an overwhelming consensus for the lighter color - the Smoky Blue color swatch. Pollsters from the community gathered to give us advice on the implications of our different color options: will the color make the room feel claustrophobic, does it match the existing furniture, does it look downright offensive, etc.

Making community-backed decisions allows you to paint your ceiling with unbridled confidence in your ceiling color choices.

Survey #3 - Design Your Audience To Fit Your Needs

When making polls for decision-making, it’s important to consider the make-up of the audience you’re testing.

audience selection for ceiling paint colors

Choosing a specific target demographic for your surveys can vastly improve the quality of responses you receive. With Helpfull, audience selection is broken down into two sections: general audience, and specific demographics. The Helpfull community is broken into dozens of different demographic categories that ensure you can design an audience that best fits your surveying needs. Sex, age, political affiliation, social media usage - you can even break your audience down on the basis of what hobbies they enjoy.

For our last ceiling paint test, we’ve chosen to restrict our audience to only those who own property. Helpfull’s demographic selection tool allows us to select an audience of our choosing just before we submit our survey.


pollsters opinion on ceiling paint colors
comments on various color styles


In just 20 minutes, our audience of 50 homeowners voted on what style they felt best improved the overall ambiance of the room. They shared with us their experiences with the various color styles we’ve shared, along with considerations paid towards complementary color options and lighting choices.

Overall, the comments we received from homeowners were much more directed and well-researched than those taken from a general polling audience.

Color Your Home With Helpfull Feedback

With 21st century technology, the headaches traditionally associated with taking on a painting project can be completely resolved. With two simple apps, anyone can get immediate feedback on their home improvement projects - no matter how big or small in scope. The considered advice given by a Helpfull community ensures homeowners can make design commitments with the confidence they need to still be satisfied with their choices years down the line.

An intuitive user-interface, coupled with the ability to gather hundreds of consumer responses in just minutes, are just a few of the features that make Helpfull the ultimate tool for any artist, designer, or marketer.

Channel your inner interior decorator with Helpfull feedback - sign up today!

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