If you’re suffering from colour confusion, fear not! Because choosing paint colours and buying paint is being made easier with new technology created here in Australia.

It is good news as so many Australians used extra time at home this year to renovate and invest in their property. And new data shows home improvement has been one of the biggest trends in 2020. 

Thousands of people have applied for the Australian Government’s HomeBuilder grants providing up to $25,000 for renovations and new builds. Suncorp Bank lending data reveals that renovators are taking out loans of an average of $63,188 to pay for improvements. And Bunnings sales were up 25 per cent between July and October 2020 even though stores in Melbourne were closed to retail shoppers for three months.

Whether you’re planning a major renovation or you just want to freshen up a couple of rooms on a budget, paint is one of the best ways to make an impact. But the process for choosing the right paint colour can be a bit complicated and messy.

So in this episode of At Home with Lauren Keenan, we bring you the story of Australian startup Tint. It’s a local business using technology to make it easier to choose colours and buy premium paint for your home.

>> Buy paint from Tint & get 10% off your purchase!

Thanks for listening to our award-winning home, lifestyle and interior design podcast. Stream the show here now or listen and subscribe in your favourite podcast app like Spotify, iHeartRadio or Apple Podcasts so you never miss an episode.

THE TROUBLE WITH PAINT

Paint colour is a big part of setting the tone for your home, whether you’re renovating or just freshening up the palette. Your walls can either be the hero in a room or they can be like a canvas for the other statement pieces you want to stand out like your sofa or an amazing artwork. 

Choosing paint colours is challenging. In fact, ‘colour confusion’ is one of the biggest reasons people don’t paint. And it can be messy and time consuming. Using tiny paint chips and test pots to work out what colour will work best is tough, especially when there are thousands to choose from. 

Working with an experienced interior stylist or interior decoration company is a good place to start. Our founder and lead interior stylist Lauren Keenan provides colour selection services and can advise on what will work best in your home. Head over to the contact page now to let us know how we can help you.

NEW TECH TO MAKE CHOOSING PAINT COLOURS EASIER

If you’re confident about making decisions and doing the painting yourself, you may still be daunted by the range of colour options or the current processes in-store. 

Now an Australian company is setting out to solve these challenges. Tint has been looking at every step in the experience of purchasing paint and is simplifying it. We thought that sounded cool and wanted to share that info with you.

Tint CEO and Founder DJ Dikic has a background in technology and engineering, not design. But he has told our home, lifestyle and interior design podcast that he is a problem solver at heart.

“We started Tint with the idea that buying paint was a really painful process. As an intro to this, we started a company called Palette – which is still running – selling colour measurement devices. These were products that would scan a colour, it would show up on your phone and you could buy the colour in-store,” he said. 

“But we realised the whole idea around digitising colour wasn’t just about sampling colour and capturing colour. It was about how do you buy paint online – that was the problem we were trying to solve.”

One of their first products was Pico – a hand-held colour matching device that you can buy for $79 to measure and record the colour of anything. They also have developed Cube, which is a similar product but has a larger area for collecting the colour and can integrate with software products including Photoshop. Very cool for creatives.   

Paint is a $3 billion market in Australia alone. Palette has sold more than 50,000 devices in 66 countries around the world since its inception.

>> Buy paint from Tint & get 10% off your purchase!

A SIMPLER WAY TO BUY PAINT

The team at Tint have set about creating a new, simple way of doing things. From a smaller curated range of colours through to innovative new sample stickers to test paint colours and buying paint and accessories online. 

And Lauren has been impressed by Tint’s efforts to keep their selection of colours to just 70 options. Especially when so many brands can have that many options in white alone. 

>> Read more about how to find the best white paint 

You can either choose from their colour range and have it shipped to you. Or order Pico, their colour capture tool for $79, to customise your order when choosing paint colours. 

“It’s a really overwhelming moment in the customer journey to choose a colour. We said, what if we could reduce the number of colours to a curated range based on colours that people are actually interested in? 

“Around the world, our users capture around 100,000 colours a month. And we can see the differences between cities and across the seasons. So we have this amazing resource of colours around the world that people are scanning and that was the foundation for our range. 

“To make the sampling process easier, we’ve created these new sample stickers which are square, like a large napkin. They give you a nice feel for how that colour will look in your space because of how they look. We can post it to you and you can move it to different walls around your home.”

And Tint’s approach to language and technical information makes things simpler too. Like fun names for colours and descriptions in plain English. Their paints are called “ceiling”, “trim”, “wall”, “prep” and “exterior” – simplifying the buying process too.

“We should be celebrating the transformation of your space and how fun painting can be. If you have all the tools and all the information, anyone can pick up a brush and transform a space. Consciously, in naming the colours, we were really about how we can make this more fun, approachable and more human,” DJ said.

LAUREN’S LOVELY LIST

Here are the links for Lauren’s Lovely List recommendations in this episode of the podcast – the things inspire Lauren and her work as an interior stylist:

• Shop for wellness and lifestyle gifts, homewares and women’s clothing with a conscience at We Are Mindful Store; 

• Get set for summer entertaining with the new ceramics collection from Mediterranean-inspired lifestyle brand Alex and Trahanas; 

• Get in the mood for Christmas by watching Holiday Home Makeover with Mr Christmas hosted by interior designer Benjamin Bradley.

MORE ABOUT OUR PODCAST ‘AT HOME WITH LAUREN KEENAN’

Our award-winning interior design podcast, hosted by Sydney interior stylist Lauren Keenan, is now in its fifth year. Lauren and Producer Scott are helping you to adapt to new ways of doing things during the pandemic. And we want to keep helping you create a home you love.  

Get in touch if you have a topic you want us to talk about on the show.

And if you want to hire Lauren to help create your perfect home, whether it’s building, renovating or just updating your favourite room, email lauren@laurenkeenan.com.au.

Find out more about our services at Lauren Keenan Home and check out Lauren’s work for some inspiration. And thanks for listening!