The ultimate guide to working with an interior colour consultant in New Zealand.
At first choosing paint colour feels like the fun part.
You’re renovating or refreshing your home, excited to get to the point where you bring your space to life. The ideas are flowing, Pinterest boards are packed and you can already picture how it will all come together. But then something shifts.
Suddenly you’re standing in a store holding 100 white paint chips. Your certainty falters. The warm white you loved now feels blue. The green that looked serene online feels murky in your lounge. The deeper you go the more paralysing it becomes.
You realise you need help or at least a second opinion but this project doesn’t warrant a full interior designer and at this point neither does the budget. You’ve heard of colour consultants but now finding one feels like just another decision on an already overwhelming list.
We hear you! And we wrote this guide for this exact moment.
So pour a coffee, get comfy and let us walk you through what it’s actually like to work with a colour consultant – from what we do, to how it works and why this small decision has a big impact.
Why colour matters more than you think.
Everything in your home has a colour.
From walls and ceilings to joinery, flooring and furniture, colour is the constant thread that ties a space together—or leaves it feeling disconnected. It’s one of the most powerful (and underrated) tools in shaping not just how your space looks but how it feels to live in.
Colour influences your mood, your sense of light and even our perception of space. It’s a subconscious language that helps define our experience of home.
Yet despite this, colour decisions are often made under pressure, left to the last minute or based on whatever’s trending. And that is where the overwhelm begins.
Which is exactly why working with a colour consultant makes so much sense.
What is an interior colour consultant.
An interior colour consultant brings clarity, cohesion, and creative direction to your space. Helping you move from indecision to confidence, from chaos to curation.
While more common overseas, independent colour consultancies are rare in New Zealand. At Pigment, colour is not a side service—it’s the full focus. Working with homeowners, interior designers, architects, real estate agents and painters to refine and elevate projects through one simple lens: the curation of paint colour.
Unlike in-store services, we’re not tied to a single brand. This means we can recommend the best colours and finishes for your home, not just what’s in stock or on promotion. Our advice is brand agnostic, design-led and grounded in real world experience.
What to expect when you work with a colour consultant.
Working with a colour consultant is designed to be simple, collaborative and reassuring from start to finish.
Before we meet, we’ll send through a short questionnaire to get a sense of your project, your style and your goals. This helps us prepare a focused selection of colours to bring to your space on the day - a considered starting point not a fixed list. From there we can explore additional options together based on how the colours respond to your space.
The consultation itself is relaxed and practical. We’ll look at any finishes you’ve already chosen—tiles, flooring, benchtops—along with key furniture pieces and any inspiration you have collected (hello Pinterest boards!). From there, we move room by room, testing how different colours respond to light, layout and materials. You’ll walk away with new ideas, or the reassurance to go ahead with the colours you’ve been considering.
Depending on the size of your home, this process can take up to 90 minutes. For large projects, we may break it into additional sessions to keep the creative energy high.
Afterwards, you’ll receive a detailed colour specification, a clear easy to follow document that outlines which colours to use and where. Think of it as an advanced paint by numbers! You’ll also receive larger brushout samples so can fully experience each of the colours in your space before painting begins.
A More Considered Approach
Independent colour consultancy is centred on colour - not product. And that changes everything.
It’s a more thoughtful, creative process that begins well before we step into your home. We take the time to understand what you’re trying to achieve - even if you are not quite sure how to describe it. We listen for how you want to feel in the space, not just how you want it to look. And from there, we shape a palette that reflects how you live.
This is different from the advice you might receive in a retail paint store. In-store consultants often have limited time and limited scope to explore your unique context. They’re also aligned with one paint brand, so their recommendations are, understandably, brand driven.
Even when painters offer “free colour advice,” that advice often comes from a brand representative. Which means, again, your options are narrowed from the start.
At Pigment, we don’t sell paint. We don’t take commissions. We simply help get the colour right - for you, your space, and how you live in it.
Is it worth hiring a Colour Consultation?
It’s easy to assume that personalised colour advice is a luxury. But when you consider what’s really at stake – your time, your confidence and the cost of getting it wrong - it becomes clear why more homeowners are including colour consultations in their renovation plans.
Let’s say you’ve bought ten testpots. That’s already close to $100, and most of them will end up unused in the back of a cupboard. Then there’s the time spent driving to and from hardware stores, the hours of decision fatigue and the mental load of second guessing - all draining the joy out of your project. In most cases that time and effort has already exceeded the cost of a consultation. In a market full of choice, the real value lies in curation. Not more options just the right ones.
A colour consultation gives you clarity, saves you time and provides expert guidance you can trust. When hiring an interior designer is not an option but you’re feeling overwhelmed or simply want to get it right first time, this is where to start.
It’s also a smart place to begin if you want your space to feel cohesive, elevated and true to your style, even on a limited budget.
Ready to Get Started?
Once colour is chosen with intention, everything else falls into place.
Your home becomes more than beautiful. It becomes a space that supports how you want to live—how you want to feel, move, and unwind. That’s the power of colour, and that’s the value of working with an expert who sees the whole picture.
So, if you’re feeling stuck, second-guessing, or just want to get it right the first time, you’re not alone.
You’re exactly who we’re here for.
Explore our Colour Consultation Services or get in touch to book a session. We’d love to help bring your home to life—one confident colour decision at a time.