We’ve peered into the dark, the paneled, and the patterned living spaces of our readers, and all we have to say is: you are a winner! Congratulations to our winners Carrie J., Erik, Heidi O., Emily W., and Christy H. We choose each winning entry for a somewhat different reason — a few because they are so bad, one that’s a nice small-room challenge, and one because there is such great potential for the right paint job to unlock. We’re sorry we couldn’t give everyone who entered a Color-Helper, but if you didn’t win, take heart: your place is probably looking a lot better than you think! See all the winning entries below.

Carrie J.:

“Boy, do I need a Color-Helper. My guest room features ’70s wallpaper (brown with blue and burgundy pinstripes) which was then topped with a sports-themed wallpaper border. The hall bath has black-and-white plaid wallpaper. (Top photo, above. –ed.) Again there’s a wallpaper border up top — this time, fussy black roses on white. Because, you know, black roses are oh-so-lifelike and beautiful. (Even worse — the white on the border is blindingly white, while the white in the plaid wallpaper is more yellowish. So even the black-and-white scheme clashes with itself!) We need to repaint, lest our friends quit visiting us. And lest we get complacent and leave such atrocious wallpaper up. Heaven forbid!”

Erik:

“Please, please, please, please, please pick me to win a Color-Helper. I painted my living room forever ago two shades of orange, and currently I am being driven insane by it. The lighter shade with the craptastic sponge job is currently on the majority of the walls in the room, and it’s killing my soul. If I was lucky enough to get a Color-Helper, my living room would no longer have to look like peach jellybean vomit sprayed inside a traffic cone. Color-help me.”

Click for the rest of our entries!

Heidi O.:

“Are you sure you want to see this? My hubby and I have lived in this rental for a year and it is filled with mismatched everything. If each room had only one kind of fake paneling, maybe I could handle it (or not), but we have rooms that have one wall with one kind of paneling, then a wall of painted drywall, and another wall of different paneling. It’s horrendous. Our guest room: Yep, that’s one wall of white and another of hideous fake paneling. Our living room: Mismatched paneling. Our family room: Another room with a wall of white and another of paneling. We are currently in the process of trying to figure out what to do with the house because if I live in it as-is for any longer, I might go crazy.”

Emily W.:

“Our master bedroom has a serious case of the blahs. We’ve purchased beautiful new bedding for it but just aren’t sure what color to use on the walls. It’s a large room but has fairly low ceilings and while I’d love to do a darker color I’m afraid it will make the room feel like a cave.”

Christy H.:


“My fiance and I have just bought our first home. As you can see from the attached pictures, we really lucked out in the kitchen department. However, I am SO unhappy with the color scheme. The blazing red is all wrong against the wood grain and the slate-colored tiles. I love to cook, and I love to have fun in the kitchen, but I just can seem to figure out which one would best match the wood and slate. The dining room molding is so nice, I don’t want to gunk it up by painting over it numerous times. But those other colors, they have to go!”

Want your own Color-Helper? Click here!