If you are planning on a renovation or just like to paint rooms, furniture etc. every so often, I find a very helpful tool to have on hand is the Benjamin Moore Color Preview Fan Deck. For $25 it can save you trips to your local store for swatches and keeps them all together by color family for years and years. Also available in Fan Decks are their Color Stories, Classics & Historical and Affinity collections. You don’t have to be a designer or set decorator to keep one of these on your desk!

Another great tool is the Color Capture App available for iPhone and Android. The basic idea is that you snap a photo.. of anything that inspires you and it will match that color from more than 3,300 paint colors. You can organize these color into favorites, share the combinations with friends or just find the nearest Benjamin Moore retailer. (There is also a tool for iPad Touch and iPad available.)

So if you are out shopping and you see a great weathered blue at an antique store, take a photo and use your app to find a matching color so that you can tangibly use that color in your own home. It really could be any inspiration- a car, a flower… this tool can take the guess work out of your inspirations.