One of life’s little conundrums is that during the months when you’re stuck indoors climbing the walls, you could be painting them; when it turns warm enough to open the windows to release those paint smells, though, you’d rather be outdoors. That’s how it used to be, anyway. With new types of paint and enticing 2007 colours, rather than moping around your place on a wet weekend, you can be effacing the Developer Beige that bores you senseless or obliterating the chartreuse beloved by the previous tenant.

“It didn’t look like that on the paint chip.” We’ve all made that first swashbuckling pass with the paint roller and immediately realized the colour sucked. Less work is seeing how your bedroom will actually look in Sandlot Grey or Lemon Grass by equipping yourself with Personal Colour Viewer 2.0 (downloadable at www.benjaminmoore.ca/ and sold at their stores, various locations; $19.95). Load a digital pic of your bathroom (vertical shots don’t work, by the way) and you’ll discover it’s more addictive than Tetris as you “paint”, print out, compare trim possibilities, and even e-mail ideas off to your sister in Ottawa for her input, all without dipping a single bristle.

Paint colours change subtly from season to season, but as with fashion, there’s usually at least one trend you can be happy with. Benjamin Moore is betting on its Natural Elements (neutrals, especially greens) as the local leader. If you’ve already done greeny-greys, the company’s Vintage Romance collection is a pretty assortment of soft rouge, pearlescent cream, and smoky greys. Industrial Age hues are ashy and understated, while Cultural Mosaic blends Asian, Latin, and Indian influences into lively backgrounds for ethnic furnishings.

General Paint’s Virtual Decorator, at www .colorlifesystem.com/, also lets you experiment on your computer screen with different colours in various rooms (not yours, unfortunately). Their new shades for 2007 are linked to mood; picking at random, Comfort and Charm references the earth hues of the arts-and-crafts movement; Energy and Optimism describes a clear, fresh palette; and calming neutrals are classified as Clean & Simple.

Making repeated trips to the paint store for samples is no way to spend your weekend. What Cloverdale Paint (various locations) does, in return for a $20 deposit, is hand over a fan of every colour they make—close to 1,500. (Who’d have thunk there were 60 different off-whites?) If nothing in the fan rocks your world, bring in your favourite yellow T-shirt or turquoise teapot, says salesperson Will Durana, and they’ll mix a batch of paint that’s the same colour. Raise the term earth-friendly, and he recommends the company’s Horizon as being kind to the nose and to nature.

That’s another benefit of decorating now rather than waiting till April or May. Staff aren’t going nuts trying to assist summertime redecorators, so they have time to tell you about paint finishes. At Benjamin Moore (1838 West Broadway), Edgar Gonzalez says, “Some people say it smells of vanilla,” of the company’s EcoSpec brand, which is ultra-low in environmentally damaging volatile organic compounds. As proof, he puts it on the shaking machine for a minute or two, then lifts the lid. Well, maybe not vanilla exactly, but definitely a smell you can live with for a few hours.

Chris Fedyk of General Paint’s 2555 Arbutus Street branch thinks winter weekends are a fine time to paint: “You’re looking at the walls anyway.” He’s a fan of the Envirogard line, available in eggshell, semi-gloss, or gloss finishes, pretinted or custom-coloured; that pretty much covers the waterfront, or, at any rate, your bathroom.

Formulations have changed, he says, so today’s latexes and acrylics even have a chance against those cabinets that owe their purpleness to oil paint (although paint people still recommend a coat of primer first). If all you know is that it’s downright ugly, a simple test is to wipe a bit of nail-polish remover on it in an inconspicuous place. “If it becomes gummy or starts to lift up, it’s latex,” says Fedyk. “If nothing changes, it’s oil.” Hang around paint stores at quiet times and you’ll learn facts like these. Also, General Paint’s Z Coat is one of the first with zero VOCs; it’s so smell-free that restaurants and hospitals use it, and it can be tinted any colour. It dries to the touch in 30 minutes, and you can slap on that second coat less than two hours later.

When you’ve finished, by all means save a small amount in a glass jar to repair the inevitable nicks and dings, but don’t stick those leftovers in the basement, storage locker, or, worst of all, the garbage. Go to www.productcare.org/ for information on how to get rid of unused extra paint in an environmentally responsible manner. Or, as the site suggests, you can slap another coat on areas that get extra wear, or use the paint as an undercoat on your next project.