I always get energized to work on the house during the holidays. It’s funny, but almost every Thanksgiving, regardless of which home I’m in, I end up painting walls. It does create some festive chaos, but it’s worth it. This year we’re finishing the hallway and starting the bedroom paint — small victories that make me truly happy. Getting these areas settled with the right colors before Christmas feels especially satisfying.
In my last post I talked about how the pinkish-beige color I called “swine” affected the way my home feels. You might not notice how much paint colors influence a space, especially if your walls are neutral, but color shapes the mood of a room. Many of us who love our homes have an internal sense of what feels right, even if we can’t immediately name it.
Sometimes we feel unsettled in a room and can’t pinpoint why. We might rearrange furniture or buy new accessories thinking that’s the solution, when the real issue is the foundational color of the walls. The right or wrong wall color can change everything about how a room reads and how comfortable it feels.
It would be convenient to see a photo on a blog and simply decide to paint our whole house the same, but it isn’t that simple. Color does more than reflect personal taste. It interacts with so many elements unique to your home — the region you live in, the quality and direction of natural light, wood floors, tile, carpet tones, cabinetry, and the colors in adjacent rooms. All of those factors change how a paint color looks. Even white can read differently from room to room, so it’s not always a neutral fail-safe.
You may admire an all-white room in a photo and worry that white would feel cold in your house. Or you might dismiss gray, browns, or colors altogether, thinking they’ll look dreary or overpowering, when in fact a slightly different shade could be ideal for your space. The same color can feel entirely different in another home — what I dislike here might be perfect in yours.
Every option can be beautiful when it’s placed in the right setting.
When I describe my walls as “swine-y” and say the color drains the life from my house, that’s a personal reaction based on my light, floors, furnishings, and the Pacific Northwest climate where I live. The same shade might read very differently in the South, Southwest, or Northeast. To find the perfect color for your home, consider your floors, wood tones, and lighting to choose the exact shade that brings your space to life.
Recently I visited Epcot at Walt Disney World to see a new exhibit called Colortopia, sponsored by Glidden, at the Innoventions Pavilion. The exhibit made color playful and accessible for both kids and adults. My favorite feature was a virtual painting booth where a fiber-optic brush let you “paint” a mural — a delightfully interactive experience. If you ever visit Epcot, the exhibit is worth a stop. (I also recorded a short video of the experience.)
I’m not a color scientist, but I’ve learned to recognize when a wall color works in real life, not just in photos. Many bloggers may choose colors that photograph well, but I rely on how a color feels in our everyday living space. After all, we have to live with it.
Even so, you can absolutely use inspiration from places you love to build a color scheme that fits your home. Travel, a favorite shop, or another person’s room can spark ideas. I recently wrote about how travel-inspired color can come from a country you love and how those palettes can translate to your home.
The key to a successful color scheme is finding the right tones and mixes for your house. Sometimes the color you love belongs on the walls; other times it’s better used in fabric, trim, or accessories. Try samples on your walls and observe them at different times of day until you find the shade that makes your room sing.
This week I’m heading back to Florida to see the 2016 HGTV Dream Home, and I’m excited to share photos on Instagram as I tour the house. I’ll post more about it here afterward.
GIVEAWAY TIME!
Visit the My Colortopia blog and choose the country color scheme that inspires you most, then leave a comment below to enter the giveaway. Sponsored by Glidden, one winner will receive a $100 gift card to The Home Depot to explore their own color ideas. The winner will be selected at random on December 5.
As a MyColortopia team member, this post is sponsored by Glidden. All opinions are my own.
Related:
My Paint Colors
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