Picking the right paint color for your walls is never an easy choice. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I paint my home’s walls once every five to ten years. So, before I start painting a room there are a few simple steps I like to go through first:
1.) Evaluate all the natural light sources that are available in a room. Sunlight can change the look of the color scheme selection used on your walls. For example, a lighter colored paint will reflect more sunlight than a darken one.
2.) Evaluate all of the homes architectural features. For example, in a living room you would want to pay close attention to a fireplace with a mantle, windows with custom molding, hardwood flooring, and heating system. These are the features of the home that you cannot change easily and will most likely be working around.
3.) Take into account the overall size of the room. To make a small room appear larger, you would want to paint the walls a lighter color. A lighter paint color will make the walls appear to recede. Of course, you would do the opposite in an extremely large room. You could paint a huge bedroom, a dark blue paint color with crisp white molding on the ceiling and the floor.
4.) Evaluate the furnishing and accent pieces in the room. Since we are staging this home to sell, any extra furniture (that do not serve a purpose) should be removed from the home. A chair’s fabric can be used to help determine a color scheme for your room’s walls.
I would even recommend taking a piece of fabric with you to the paint store to help in your paint selection process. I am drawn toward warmer paint colors and like to recommend sage greens and tans to my clients. These colors are “safer” choices for a home that is going to be placed on the market. All window moldings should be painted a high gloss white to draw your eye to them. All ceilings over 9 feet tall should have some sort of crown molding painted a high gloss white paint as well. Of course, the paint color scheme of one room of your home needs to compliment the rest of your home. For example, your living room should not be a warm terracota paint color and run into your kitchen that is a bright violet shade of purple.
Kate’s Home Staging and Redesign offer color consultations as a service. If you are having a difficult time picking out your wall colors, we can help. We will bring our Benjamin Moore Color Kits to your home and help you decide on the correct wall color choices.
– Kate
Kate’s Home Staging and Redesign servers the Rockland County and Orange County areas of New York and Passaic County and Bergen County areas of New Jersey, please visit http://www.kateshomestaging.com or call 845-538-3623 for more information. We also offer home staging, home decorating, interior design, redesign, custom wood signs, window coverings, virtual shows, and home designs.
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