How To Choose The Right Paint Colours For Your House

They say home is where the heart is. No matter how far we go on a journey, home is always the place where we return to. What better way to enjoy each other’s presence at home than having the house painted as we wish? That being said, you can’t enjoy your house appearance if you use the wrong set of colours. Even if you hire professional residential painters, if the colours used are not a match with each other, what’s the use of hiring them? So, how do you choose the right paint colours for your house? Keep reading this article to find out!

Before we go further, first you need to understand the importance of balance and harmony in colours. For example, you want a set of green and blue colours for your house, but then your 15-year old daughter wants her room painted in red. Sure, you can actually do it since well, it’s your house and you can do anything to it as you wish. However, if you learn the meanings of each colour, you will understand why harmony and balance are needed. For instance, black means boldness, elegance, power, formality and sophistication. However, black also means death, evil and aggression. Therefore, you need to make sure the other colours can ‘tame’ the dark side of the black colour. Believe it or not, the colour you choose can affect your mood and what energy it can emit throughout the house. Now that you know the basic concept of colours, let’s check out this glossary.

1. Colour – colour is the appearance of a surface born from the way it reflects light.
2. Hue – this is actually a synonym for colour.
3. Shade – this is a colour with dark version made by adding black. For example, dark red.
4. Tint – this is a colour with light version made by adding white. For example, pink is a tint of red.
5. Tone – this is a lighter or darker version of a colour.
6. Colour wheel – this is a circular diagram that shows the primary colours (red, blue, yellow); secondary colours created through mixing the primaries (red + blue = purple; red + yellow = orange; yellow + blue = green); and the tertiary colours (red-orange; yellow-orange; yellow-green; blue-green; blue-purple; red-purple).
7. Warm colours – a colour is classified as warm if it has reds, oranges and yellows in it. Maybe the sun, sunsets and fires can remind you of warm colours.
8. Cool colours – greens, blues and blue-purples. Think water and sky.
9. Neutral colours – strictly speaking, colours that are not warm or cool but more likely to be applied to colours that are not on the wheel, for example greys and whites as well as browns and blacks.

So, how do you choose the right paint colours for your room?

Which way does your room face?

First, be aware of how important it is to know which way your room faces because the quality of the light that comes in is different and that may depend on whether the room looks north, south, east or west and this will alter the appearance of the paint colour once it’s on the wall.

North facing rooms

If your room faces north, it receives cooler and harsher light. Therefore, make sure you avoid using cool colours because cool colours in a north facing room might appear even cooler and look flat. You may want to choose pinks or yellows for this type of room. If you want darker colours, you can go with charcoal-like colour sets or deep red-purples.

East facing rooms

Since a room that faces east tends to look bright in the morning (earlier of the day), but become cooler as the day progresses, you can choose a set of blue, green or pale neutral colours with a blue or green base. This will balance the sunshine so it will make the colours less intense.

South facing rooms

A room that faces south gets warm and colour-flattering light all day long; therefore, you might want to consider cool colours to keep the atmosphere breezy. You can choose neutral colours with a cooler base, so you will create balance from the ‘warm’ that the light brings to the room and the cool colours from the paint.

West facing rooms

A room that faces west will look cooler in the mornings then gets warm light later on; therefore, you can follow the same rules as in an east facing space, because at the end of the day, the cool colours should either balance the sunlight or strong colours will intensify it.

What if… you have a small or dark room?

Did you know that paint can generate a transformative effect that can make a room look larger? Well, now you know. If you have small room, you should know that cool colours can appear further away rather than warm hues. Whites and pale neutrals can reflect the most light, so it will look airier and you feel that your room is bigger.

That’s the proper way to choose paint colours for your room. Sometimes it is not about what colours we like, but it is also about the balance we create from those colours. If your room is painted correctly, you will not only see beautiful colours in your room but you can also feel comfortable staying at home and enjoy every single moment in your room.