Best Paint Colors for Your Tuscan Inspired Home

You don't have to travel to Italy to experience Tuscany's beautiful scenery and rich artistry. With the right accessories, proper lighting, and a cleverly chosen color palette, you can save your flyer miles and bring Tuscany into your own home.

To create your own Tuscan-inspired home, the first thing to consider is color. The colors of the Tuscan palette are inspired by nature. Luckily, there's plenty to choose from; rich burgundies of aged wine, greens of succulent olives, the golds from the rays of the sun or from a perfectly ripe pear. If the boundless choices of colors leave you in whirlwind of wonder, I've simplified it for you by providing the best paint colors to achieve your touch of Tuscany.

To begin, set the stage with a predominant neutral. These shades are warm and dramatic like deep reds, burnt oranges or copper-like shades of brown. Glidden's paint in Bold Terra-Cotta, Golden Sun and Rustic Drama create the visual depth needed with their heavy and rich tones.

Faux painting techniques in muted shades of yellowish grays can transform your room into a Tuscan villa. Color-washing, aging, and ragging are just some of the ways surfaces can be treated so that different color tones show through. Colors like Sherwin William's Sunflower Seed, Sundance and Overjoy are subdued yellow-based Mediterranean colors that can create the illusion of texture when laid over a rich neutral base.

Tone down the brights with an earthy mix of greens and browns. Behr offers a wide selection of colors. Choose from gentle tones of olive or sage, like Behr's Pondorosa Green or Avocado. Then try Terra Nueva and Santa Fe for rustic shades of brown.

Finally, you want to add colorful accents with vibrant pops of colors. Let the decorative accents of Tuscany inspire your endless selection of colors, like bright tomato red or cobalt blue often found in ceramic art all throughout southern Europe. Somber colors can even add a distinctive amount of dramatic contrast like the brassy copper from your pots and pans or the rich darkness in your scrolled ironwork. Ralph Lauren's paint collection of "Island Brights" offers a palette of 64 glowing and vibrant tones. Mediterranean Blue and Bali Turquoise are just two that top my list.

Weather its matte like the colors found in nature or glossy like glazed Spanish pottery, your Tuscan paint selection has minimal restrictions. The color palette is anything but discriminating; including diverse hues of deep browns to vibrant reds, orange and yellow sun-kissed tones, and pulsating greens, and rich blues ... so go ahead and choose, just about any paint color under the Tuscan sun.