Color – A Powerful Decorating Tool

I love color!  Color is a powerful decorating tool for creating mood and for unifying disparate materials and styles.  Colors work to trigger different parts of our brain and stimulate various types of thinking and behavior. Amazingly, people universally respond the same to different colors.

Therefore, color has a role in how we respond to a home or to an individual room. When preparing a home for sale, color can be the added factor that gives the home the WOW! factor you’re looking for.

There are no hard and fast rules about color.  You can use almost any color…. the secret is the intensity of the color.  A lighter room usually looks larger, a darker room smaller. But remember, colors appear darker and stronger on large expanses (such as a wall or a ceiling).

Bold primary colors are great for a child’s room. They can enliven a very simply furnished child’s room but are usually not something you want to use when staging a living room, family room or master bedroom.

A general rule of thumb is to use three basic colors, one being a neutral. Walls should be warm and light.  Avoid colors that are cold such as a cold white with a blue tinge.  These tend to make the room feel cold and uninviting. White, when used properly however, can bring serenity to a room, especially with features that are not harmonizing perfectly.  Use it on large-scale walls and ceilings or as a neutral backdrop for a fine art collection.

Neutrals are a very popular choice today for good reason.  They work with a wide range of other colors and can compliment a color scheme ordominate a room.   Neutrals usually include different shades of white, cream, grey, beige, brown and sometimes black.  They are great backdrops for interesting artwork or exciting furniture pieces.

Neutrals can work well as your main color with a focal point wall of a different, bolder color.

Paint is a very inexpensive way to update the home and attract more buyers.  The home you are preparing for sale may look just like numerous other homes on the outside, but you can give it the wow factor and interest needed to attract more buyers through effective use of color, furniture arrangement and accessories.

If you think you would like to do some work in your home but are a little afraid of choosing the colors to use, give us a call.  We would love to help you.