Painting Goals: Brighten a Dark Room

The last question to ask yourself before buying paint (scroll down to see the other issues you should consider) is whether you find the room unpleasantly dark during the day.  If the windows in the room face north or if you live under a canopy of trees, the wrong wall paint may not do well in dim light.  You can help keep your electrical bill down by choosing a pale (lots of white in the formula) hue and one from the red, yellow, or orange families like in the first example on the right.  This will make the room brighter/warmer during the day in spite of the lack of light.  If you prefer cooler colors, choose a pale one that has warm undertones.  In the second example I illustrated, I choose a blue-violet which is warmer than a blue-green.  It's critical to test your paint on the actual walls before committing.

Painting Goals: Create a Larger or Smaller Space

Another question to ask yourself before going to the paint store is whether the room to be painted feels too small or too large?  Using the right color paint can create the illusion of a more intimate room or a more open one.

The same room painted in a warm yellow color gives the impression of a smaller space than one painted in a cool green.  Warm colors advance; cool colors recede to the naked eye.  So if your room is overly large, paint it in the red, orange, or yellow spectrum and in the blue, green and violet spectrum if it's small.  Notice the blue ceiling paint in the receding example.  A light, pale blue gives the feeling of more height.

Painting Goals: Unify or Partition a Space

As you know, great paint colors don't just happen by accident or guesswork.  There really is a science to selecting a hue that does wonders to a room.  Here is another example of how chosing either one or two colors to use in a space can make a big difference in how you perceive its size.

In this example a foyer can either be visually included in the larger room or separated to give the impression that there are more functional areas to a home.  This is especially useful, for example, in eat-in kitchens where there is one large room to serve two functions, cooking and dining.  Painting a wall (or adjoining walls) near the table in one color and the opposite walls in the cooking area a complimentary color divides the space nicely.

Painting Goals: Emphasize a Room Feature

After you have determined the mood you want to create with your paint color, ask yourself what other goals you'd like to accomplish. In this example, paint is used to either draw your attention to or away from an architectural feature of the room. The illustration on the right de-emphasizes the alcove by using the same color that's in the main room. In the bottom example, I've used a yellow to not only bring attention to the architectural feature (alcove) but to the pillow in the chair as well. Tricks like this help you get your "things" noticed. If you don't want such a bold statement, consider using the same green color for the alcove, just 2 shades darker on the color strip.

Painting Rules - Mood Continued

Establishing a mood with your wall color is as important as what you put in the room!  Here are more palettes that set a tone for how you want people to feel when they visit.

  


Often seen in children's rooms, the whimsical palette uses bright colors with accents in bedding, floor coverings and accessories that are equally as lively. 

  A neutral palette consists of colors "stripped" of their vibrancy, not just browns, greys or off-whites as many people think.  These combinations are useful when attention is wanted on artwork and furnishings without a lot of drama. Neutral pallets are often used when selling a home so potential buyers don't have a strong reaction to any room.

Regardless of what kind of mood you want to evoke or whether your colors are vibrant or neutral, you can choose them in the warm spectrum of reds, oranges and yellows or in the cool spectrum of blues, green and purples depending on what appeals to you.

Painting Rules - Establish Mood

There truly is systematic way to pick the perfect paint colors for your home. Before plunging the brush into a bucket of "acceptable" or "bargain" paint, you should think about some basic requirements - how do you want the paint to work for you?  The first step is to determine what mood or tone you want to convey.  While mood is an emotion and not something you would expect to address in a systematic approach to choosing paints, it is one of the first things your guests will sense when they walk into your home if you do it right.  Study the swatches below to get a feel for how to deliver a particular ambiance. Of course there are additional moods or tones that can be evoked: romantic, masculine, feminine, etc., but these should give you a good starting point. 

 Rooms that draw you in and make you feel warm and cozy are ones that have a dominant color in the warm spectrum: red, yellow, oranges.  Accent colors in geens and blues also contribute to the feeling as long as they have red or yellow undertones.


 

To set a restful, tranquil mood, use hues that are light and cool.  Blues and greens tend to calm the mood.  Monochromatic color schemes in the paint, upholstery and carpeting help to achieve a serene environment. Notice the largest chip in each strip is the palest.  This means that the dominant color (walls) should be the palest while upholstery, floor coverings can be slightly darker.

Dramatic moods are achieved with combinations of bold, saturated colors or a single bold color with grays, browns, blacks or whites.  These colors choices are used more in contemporary homes where an energy is desired to set the stage for dramatic artwork, furnishings, or architecture.

More mood palettes to come!

The Sex & Science of Color in Your Home

Welcome to my blog!  I love researching, writing, illustrating, explaining everything that has to do with interior design. I'm passionate about it. While consulting with homeowners, I almost always incorporate an educational component so that it all makes sense to them. My monthly newsletters that I send only to my clients and vendors have gotten such great feedback that I thought I'd begin to post them in a forum that can be found more easily, the blog!

The blogs I find the most compelling are from professionals who are truly passionate about their subject matter - they find inspiration in the most unusual things and places. This is the most exciting element of this media form, I think - sharing the personal, intimate experiences that make a professional truly great at what they do. What a great learning tool!

One of the design elements that I'm most obsessed with is color...on the walls, in fabrics, on the objects that surround you, how they interact with each other and the mood they create.  It's the very first thing you see when you look at something.  Perhaps even before you can identify an object you note its color, consciously or subconsciously.  So this blog is dedicated to design with an emphasis on color and the role it plays in making your house a home.

Enjoy these postings as I share my passion with you!