Sara Aniston

Almost every disappointing paint job is an undertone problem, and almost all of it is preventable with three large samples and a week of patience.

Specify for year ten rather than day one, and a surprising number of the materials that photograph worst on handover day turn out to be the right choice.

Fewer fixtures, placed lower, switched separately. The most useful shift in residential lighting in a decade is a subtraction rather than an addition.

After a decade of gray and greige, the palette has moved toward complex, slightly muddy colors with real pigment in them. Here is how to use one without repainting in a year.