Kevin McCloud's Colour Now: An Expert Guide to Choosing Colour for Your Home Paperback – 7 Jun. 2012

The two star rating is for the 2012 edition.I'd give the 2009 edition 5 stars, because not only is it an excellent guide to which colours work together and why, but it includes a numbered grid of all the colours used in the book, grouped into families. This is very useful when you want to choose an alternative to one or more colours in a palette, or choose your own palette using the guidelines given in the book.In the 2012 edition, the colour grid is reproduced without any numbering, rendering this page useless. I think this is because these were Fired Earth numbers and they no longer use this numbering system. All mention of Fired Earth, (apart from the colour names), has been removed from the 2012 edition, although the colours are still available ( NB I haven't checked all of them!). You don't have to use Fired Earth paints to make use of this book, though. You could match the book swatches to other commercial paint charts, or have paint mixed to match, and some of the colours in a palette will come from other sources; flooring, soft furnishings, etc.The 2012 edition is still an entertaining guide to colour but there is no new content. One good point is that the book is larger so the swatches are slightly bigger. I prefer the 2009 edition, though, so I have ordered a second hand copy and returned this 2012 edition.

I am not very good at knowing what colours to put together in home decorating. This book is a really useful guide.

I am absolutely useless with colours and needed help, I'm a great fan of Kevin Mcloud and trust his judgement. This book inspired me as soon as I opened it. If you are like me with colours then this book is a must.

Bought for son who is decorating new home. He said, 'what a great pressie, he had no idea about colour before and it has inspired him'.

Amazon may not agree with this but I have read all the reviews and only want to comment on the reviews not the book but by commenting on the reviews I am commenting on the book. ?!?All of us produce attitude by association whether it be our manner of dress or our social stance in our community. Therefore reading these reviews for me is extremely entertaining. The fascination comes from wondering if Mr. McCloud goes too far or not enough with his decorating publications; for me I like them all. The biggest puzzle of all the price. No one has mentioned that. Is it a misprint. Will some one comment on my review and explain? Thank you Amazon for every thing you do.

I had wondered whether to buy this book or not after reading the reviews here. I originally thought I would not do so and just use paint suppliers charts of which there are many and then there are two architectural special paint suppliers and my favourite local manufacturer of name brand equivalent quality but about thirty percent cheaper, all in easy reach!Why did I change my mind, well I browsed a copy in the Art Gallery shop and decided that since it was a fraction of the price of my new home I'd might as well read though it. And here I am wondering where I saw that clarification of the paint names and numbers at the back of the book....I can't work it out! As well as wondering if anything will work for me. For a start he hasn't got a light stone coloured floor, a built-in wardrobe door in that bluey milky glass that was the rage 12-15 years ago when my new place was built and as others have suggested bright artificial colours or even bold colours have no place in his schemes except as occasional pots or in the case of green, as an apple, though its a common colour for quality chairs of which I have one that is going with me! As I type this I am snuggled in my Ikea covered duvet which is quite outside anything this book acknowledges...so...Maybe once I have sorted out a colour for my curtains then I can return and struggle with his patterns but they seem not to match much I have or contrast with and whilst I suspect some need to be taken on trust and tried the cost of paint in Australia is a deterrent to experiment....one of the architectural paint suppliers here had a range that was largely dirty looking and another, in fact most retail brands do seem to incorporate optical brighteners in their colours, partially no doubt because so many of us in Australia live with blinds drawn to exclude light and heat rays that without colours which have some life we would think our walls were dirty dingy or both....Anyway there is no one else brave enough to publish a book, the designers the paint companies use are of the moment in advice but, and this must be a plus I have learnt from this book they all tend to use too many colours I.e. if they choose four for a room then three will be paint...the deal being to sell as much paint as possible. One thing I have done over the years is self tone down a colour and use a lighter tone in darker areas thus minimising the effect of natural light diminution .....yes he skimps so much, it's not a manual just a starter for the have it nows...and both the shade card and the suggestions are safe...none are daring...whilst I thought someone's comment about a bucket of bright red paint was not helpful blocks of bright twentieth century colour do not it seems figure in this mans world.6 out of 10 seems about right....Having chosen my own colours I eventually had to repaint one wall as it did not work ....the only advice I think you should take from McCloud is his advice to keep totality the same, which I didn't but now have done...in my local paint makers shade chart that was a green shade white and blue-red shade white on the same row with just a couple of just seen walls in a bright spring green, about 2 tones stronger at least...the other green used to shade the white is a mid shade green. The floor has a carpet described as snowfall and this is where McClouds book didn't help much, it's a light complex beige type of colour i.e.. a dirty snow. Anyway the book will give you much to think about but trial and the odd error worked best for me overall! Still a 6 out of 10 and the paint rep was more like an 8 out of 10! He didn't like my blue much as a colour but it works superbly in my view, so go with your paint makers shade chart perhaps? Have fun!