Everyone has a favorite color, but not everyone understands how to use that most loved hue to full advantage at home. Benjamin Moore color expert Sharon Grech offers hints aimed at helping you build a household palette around apple green, sunflower yellow, or firehouse red—whatever your favoritecolormight be—to create a sense of flow that continues seamlessly from one room to the next.

1. CHOOSE HARMONIOUS HUES

“Although it’s simpler to just paint one color throughout the house,” Grech says, “changing the color or the value of the color from room to room is a very effective way to define spaces. Choose more than one shade of your favoritecoloror move close-by on the spectrum, but be sure to limit your palette to no more than five distinct colors. And remember: White is a color when decorating!”

2. FIND A STARTING POINT

Which room should get the purest form of your favorite color? For Grech, the answer is whichever room already features that hue in a decorative accessory, be it a work of art or a fabric pattern. However, if your home is a blank canvas that is crying out forsome color, “choose the room you spend quality time in.” Grech continues, “For many of us, it’s the kitchen or living room.”

3. FOCUS THE COLOR IN OPEN FLOOR PLANS

If you have anopen floor planand feel the color would be too overwhelming if applied everywhere, use it for an accent wall only. You can then balance its effect with a neutral coordinate for the rest of the space, Grech advises. “The coordinating color can be a lighter value of the accent wall or a neutral that will work with almost any hue, likeBenjamin Moore’sJute or Muslin,” she says.

4. ACCESSORIES ECHO YOUR MAIN COLOR

“Be sure to repeat touches of your favorite color in adjacent rooms by way of soft furnishings and accessories like throw pillows, picture frames, and china patterns,” Grech says. “This will help to ensure harmony from space to space.”

5. USE HALLWAYS TO CONNECT SPACES

“走廊可以自然缓解的colorful rooms, but you also want to continue the sense of flow throughout the house,” Grech advises. “Use these thoroughfares to display colorful framed images or accessories that reference back to the home’s color palette, even if the wall color here is moreneutralthan the rest of the house.”