HOW TO PAINT YOUR ROOM
Repainting is the cheapest way to change a room - and the easiest to get wrong. This guide takes you from the photo on your phone to a finished wall: try colours on your own walls and ceiling in the YoDecor paint tool (the first 3 rooms are free, no account), check a real sample, then prepare and paint in the order professionals use.
Stand in a doorway or a corner and photograph the room in daylight with the phone held level, with as much wall and ceiling in the frame as you can. Switch the lamps off so the walls show their true colour. JPG, PNG or WebP up to 15 MB.
Open the paint tool and upload the photo. In 10-20 seconds every wall and the ceiling gets a numbered dot. Nothing is stored: the photo is only used to find the surfaces.
Press All walls to colour every wall at once, Whole ceiling for the ceiling, or tap one dot to paint a single feature wall. The orange highlight shows exactly what will change.
Pick from the palette or enter your own colour code. The new colour keeps the room's real light and shadows, so a sunny wall stays sunny. Hold Before to compare, switch the light to Even if the shading looks patchy, and use the brushes to fix a spot the tool missed or painted by mistake.
Download the painted photo and take it to the shop. Screens and paint never match exactly: buy a sample pot of your two favourites, paint an A4 patch on the wall you will paint and look at it in the morning and in the evening before buying the full amount.
Move furniture to the middle, mask the trim, fill and sand holes, wash greasy walls. Paint the ceiling first, cut in the edges with a brush, roll the walls in a W pattern and give the second coat only when the first is fully dry.
Before / After
Real results from the YoDecor paint tool on real room photos, with Orgachim colours. Colours on a screen differ from paint on a wall - always check a sample.
All walls coloured at once, the ceiling left white, the room's own sunlight kept.
Walls and ceiling in two colours - a bold combination tried in a minute, before buying a single tin.
Add up the wall lengths, multiply by the height and subtract doors and windows. Most emulsion covers 10-12 m² per litre per coat. Two coats are normal, three for a strong colour over a dark wall. Buy all the tins from the same batch so the colour matches.
Matt hides small bumps and suits living rooms and bedrooms. Eggshell or satin wipes clean and is better for halls, kitchens and children's rooms. Bathrooms need a moisture-resistant paint. Ceilings are almost always matt, white or a lighter shade of the wall colour.
North-facing rooms make colours cooler and greyer; south-facing rooms warm them up. Warm white bulbs push every colour towards yellow. That is why the paint tool keeps your photo's own light instead of showing a flat swatch - and why the sample patch matters.
A single feature wall behind the sofa or the bed adds depth without closing the room in. All four walls in a mid or dark tone make a small room cosy and a big one calmer. Try both in the tool before you decide - the first three rooms cost nothing.
Some paint shops offer the same tool on their own website with their colour cards, codes and prices, so the colour you tried is the colour you buy. If your shop does not have it yet, show them the link.
COMMON QUESTIONS
The first 3 rooms (photos) are free and need no account. After that each room costs 1 design credit; 25 designs cost €12 one-time, with no subscription.
Not exactly. Screens, the photo's exposure and the paint's finish all shift a colour. Use the tool to narrow the choice, then test a sample pot on the actual wall.
The tool finds surfaces from one photo and sometimes includes a dark flat object or a white trim. Use the Remove paint brush to clear it, or the Paint here brush to add a spot it missed.
Yes. Every wall has its own numbered dot - tap one to colour just that wall. Walls in the same colour that meet in a corner may count as one.
No. The photo is sent once to find the walls and ceiling, the answer comes back to your browser and nothing is kept on the server.