Looking to spruce up your home or are you simply tired of the same color on your walls? Painting is a fun way to change the feel of any room. Barbara Jacobs from HGTV has provided 10 tips to picking paint colors using “paint psychology.” She says that color accounts for 60% of our reaction to objects. The effects of color are psychological, physical, subtle yet significant. The color around us is influential in where we work and live.
1. Start Small: You may not be familiar with painting, so pick a small hall hall or powder room and experiment there. In order to see the results quickly, pick an area that’s quick to do. To start, pick a color from a piece of art, a rug, dishes or a piece of furniture as a main color or accent.
2. Think About Your Mood: Consider the mood of a room when selecting a color. Soft, neutral, cool colors tend to create a quieter feel while the darker colors are more dramatic. When you think about what kind of dining room ambiance you want, do you think of something formal or something more casual and sociable? If you answered formal, use deeper blue-greens and neutrals. If you answered casual, use warmer, brighter and more contrasting colors.
3. Pay Attention To Lighting: Natural daylight works best for showing true color. Flourescent lighting casts a sharp blue tone while incandescent lighting brings out yellows and warm tones. A strong color might be effective when it’s used as an accent wall with indirect light, while the strong color might be too bright when used on walls that are next to a large window.
4. Learn The Color Terms: Hue is what color is called. (ex-blue is the hue). How dark or light a hue is will determine it’s value. Saturation refers to how dominant the hue is…the red hue becomes less dominant as you go from red to pink. Intensity is the brilliance of the color. Pure colors like red are more intense than yellow-green. A stronger, more intense color usually has more hue. A very light color can feel too bright and stark when it shows up on all surfaces in a room. Instead, use two or more medium-light and closely related pastels to create a luminous effect when used in the same room. So, even if you want a light colored room, use colors that are more saturated than off-white or a light pastel.
5. Test Your Color Choice: Test your color choices out on a large area of the wall or a posterboard. Step out of your comfort zone by considering soft, deep neutrals like olive green or chocolate brown as main or accent colors. You could add a dramatic feel by using stronger colors on the ceiling, with a tinted celing creating a whole new look in a room.
6. Add Depth With Decorative Finishes: Transform bare walls into interesting spaces using subtle or dramatic visual texture and broken color. Layered color glazes and metal finishes (copper, mica,bronze or antiqued silver and gold), add depth.
7. Walk Into Another Room: Think of it this way-when you’re in one room, you will see a piece of the other room. Therefore, as you are choosing colors, think of how they will flow from room to room to create a complete picture.
8. Follow The Color Wheel: Use a small color wheel-it’s a great reference point to modify and intensify two or more colors. Take red and green, which are normally opposite colors. They become more intense when used together. You may learn to enjoy entirely new color pallettes when you discover how many colors work really well together. The color wheel also serves to illustrate the visual temperatue of color. Drawing a fine line from the yellow-green mark down to the red-violet, you will find that the colors on the left are warm while the ones on the right are cool.
9. Play Up Monochromatic Schemes: If you think one color is boring, create bold variations by within one color group by using contrasting paint finishes. You can use closely related colors or a single color in different finishes for walls in one space. To create an accent color, use warmer (reds) or cooler (blues) colors to complement the main color group.
10. Choose Different Paint Finishes: To create a cohesive look in rooms with lots of windows and doors, use a different finish on the paint. You can use an eggshell finish on walls and a satin or semi gloss on trim. The color will look slightly different on each surface.
Happy painting! For other home decorating tips, click here. If I can help you with any of your real estate needs, please send me a note or give me a call.
