Your Paint Color Selection MATTERS
Have you ever walked into a house and thought the wall color was weird or didn’t make any sense? Beige walls can turn pink, gray walls can turn purple and cream can turn lemon yellow.
Making color selections might feel like it should be easy, but it can go terribly wrong sometimes. The color on the 1-inch square might have looked perfect but once it gets on the walls, colors change, brighten and surprise us.
Color Consultations
Color Consultations are one of my favorite things to do. When homeowners need help choosing the right shade of their favorite color or help coming up with a color story for the entire house, we get to pour over options, get creative and think nothing of who will like it except the homeowner. Lavender gray is beautiful, but only if you did it on purpose.
Color is personal
Color on anything is a personal preference, so making selections to decorate your home for yourself and making selections to sell are completely different. Go purple, orange or neon green for yourself, but when it’s time to sell, I’ll be back to recommend something neutral. But really, use purple, orange and neon green sparingly!
When selling, the walls don’t have to all be neutral, but it is important to evaluate wall color in context so that you don’t turn buyers off or overwhelm them with the task of re-painting. A deep red family room should always be painted neutral but a bright green kid’s bedroom might be okay to leave. Might. The colors must make sense with the finishes, décor and lighting in the house.
Even more importantly, paint color should not be something that accentuates a less desirable feature of your home. The wrong shade of paint can leave buyers feeling like they need to take on a very expensive renovation when in fact, the right paint color can completely update a space.
Paint Color Fails
Just last week, I had a seller tell me he wanted to paint the whole house Agreeable Gray before putting it up for sale. Painters like to use Agreeable Gray and Realtors (for some reason) universally recommend it. When I held up the 11x14 Agreeable Gray color board and it looked green. Which in turn, made the kitchen counters and cabinets scream ORANGE! It was terrible. We selected the right shade of beige that perfectly coordinated with the existing cabinets and counters and softened the less desirable orange undertones. And I told him to paint the dark red living room even if he didn’t want to.
My husband and I purchased an investment property a few years ago that was painted top to bottom in the same shade of gray blue. Here in North Carolina, we love Carolina Blue, but not all over the house. It was clear that the sellers meant to paint the house gray but instead, it screamed blue everywhere. We paid $27,000 less than asking and spent $5,000 to paint. A few repairs and new light fixtures too, but not $27,000 worth. It pays to prepare for marketing or you’ll give away the equity.
Neutral paint colors are even more tricky than the colors. If you pull open one of the manufacturer’s fan decks, you’ll see dozens of shades of white, beige and gray with very subtle differences. It’s the neutrals that can turn on you the most.
Blue is great, but not EVERYWHERE!
Neutral beige. Not exciting but good for staging!
Color changes on the wall and in the light
Agreeable Gray can turn green, but things could be worse. Like, Navajo White might actually look orange. Olympus White turns blue. Unique Gray reads purple. Kilim Beige is pink! In the right environment, these colors make sense, but it is always worth consulting with a professional before putting a popular color on your walls.
And, by all means, Pure White is not safe. Rarely does a home’s natural light or furnishings and décor justify that much white.
Lighting also affects how we see color. Color temperature, also known as kelvin, ranges from yellow up to blue. The light bulb box might say soft white or daylight, but those terms refer to the kelvin. Depending on the color of the light, we see the undertones of paint differently and sometimes changing a lightbulb can change the wrong paint color.
If you are considering a paint project at your home, inside or out, please reach out for a Color Consultation. Before spending thousands of dollars with a professional painter, make a small investment in professional help with color selections.
