Categories: DIY Home Staging

How to properly use colors in a room to increase your bottom line

The right usage of color plays such an important role when it comes to decorating and staging a home. In fact, the element of color has been proven to have such an effect on people that it influences not only their mood, but their psyches in ways to even affect ones energy level, attraction to the opposite sex, hunger, overall being and yes even their bottom line.  Not to get off tangent, but so much emphasis is given to color, that color consultants became careers path choices for those who chose to become experts in it.  Their understanding of different shades of color help you identify specific palettes best to compliment from your skin tone, body to of course the colors used throughout your home.

Whenever you are starting a project, one of the most important decisions is selecting the paint colors for a specific room.  It is a starting factor that not only frames the way you want to portray this space, but creates instantly the feel and mood for someone when they are in it.  How you position this initial selection will help you select the right furnishings later to create that relaxing, somber or intimate escape for someone, juxtaposed a flowing cheerful feeling of openness, entertaining and of a welcoming ambience.  This is how powerful the color’s influence can be so finding that correct shade is a task one should not take lightly. 

       5 hacks to increase your bottom line using Paint Colors:

Make space seem larger

Space separations for room identities

Cozier and Warmer

Creating cheery and vibrancy

Creating peaceful retreats and calmness

Illusion to open up a room to make it feel larger then it actually is

A real simple hack to make any room appear bigger that it actually is, is by choosing colors in a lighter shade of any spectrum.  It not only creates a sense of openness in a room but it also gives you an illusion to make it feel much more expansive in size to the eye.  In a space where it lacks sufficient natural light, a lighter color palette lets light freely bounce in that space for the optical illusion.   

Asides from opening up small rooms, it also works the same if you have got areas of low ceilings. By using a lighter color to almost neutral white, it immediately creates more height in that space as your eyes will see it as eternity stretching it high up. 


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Another way to make a low ceiling look taller is by painting the borders where the ceiling meet the walls by creating a mock crown molding.  By doing this, you draw the eyes to the ceiling making them look like they are higher than what it really is.

Space separations for room identities

From the ceilings to the rooms, the division point between the walls help you identify your space.  Whenever you paint the ceiling a different color from the actual wall, you will see a separation between those areas.  The eye can visualize and see where the area begins and where it ends.  Using this same concept, you can use 2 different paint colors in the same room to create space separations for room identities.  One side of the wall can be of a different color that the other and even down in the middle of the wall you can incorporate 2 different colors.  If you have an open area in which you want to use one side for a different purpose, you can easily just paint to highlight that area using a different color.  The result can be subtle or it can make a statement.  This way, just using paint, you can design a room and it is totally on budget.  With just a can of paint ($15- $30) can add you an extra space where you won’t have to make walls or add separations to show that this area is used for a different purpose (add pictures)

Creating a Warmer and Cozier Ambience

A white wall while is clean and a blank slate, in a large room, it can lack a sense of coziness.    By incorporating an accent wall or using Darker colors, it can easily transform to a much warmer and intimate feel even with just the color itself. While these light colors do open up a room, these darker colors make a contrast by absorbing light.

Like using light colors on the ceilings to heighten a room, these areas with high ceilings will need to have a darker color on to shorten its apparent height.  The darker color will bring it closer in proximity so it doesn’t appear to feel quite cavernous when dealing with a high ceiling.

Happy, cheerful, energetic vibe

Have you ever walked into a room and instantly you felt uplifted?  Chances are the colors used in the room were bright joyful and happy.  Any color in the rainbow spectrum has the effect to lift someone up to an overall cheerful vibe.  Some popular colors to brighten and cheery up a room would be yellow, orange, blue, green and sometimes even pink.  The shade of each of these colors would be a darker and a brighter colors.  Lots of color combination can create a feeling that you are on vacation.  These colors are perfect to use for an exercise room, a basement you want to incorporate as a playroom or a sunroom.  The fact that you can change the vibe of a room based only on colors is a pretty powerful easy hack that you can incorporate in your next design.

Creating peaceful retreats and calmness

If you want to make any space feel more relaxing and serene, splash a bit of light colors onto the walls.  The color choices perfect for the job would be paint colors that are flat, soft in hue such as light pastels. Since color has a strong effect on psychology, you can take advantage of this simple method to create the mood you want for that specific room.

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Usually people want to opt to a shade of blue since it is a reminder of the soft clear blue skies and calming ocean waves.  Another popular and relaxing color choice is the shade of green.  Depending on the purpose of the room, it is often a choice since it reminds us of peaceful landscapes and natures. These pastel colors can be paired with other soft neutral shades to create a space that is not only elegant but comfortable enough to unwind anybody into a relaxing mode. 

Is there a color you absolutely love and gravitate?

Whenever you are staging or decorating your own home, pay attention to how different colors make you feel. Is there a certain color that inspires you or you gravitate towards? Perhaps blush pink makes you feel happy and is a color you absolutely love.  Keep a tab of the feelings you have when you are around those similar colors so that when you are choosing a particular color, you can incorporate it into your color scheme even if you are only using it as accent colors.  The point of colors, has a lot to do with the vibes it gives you but as a rule of thumb, if you follow these hacks, you will be able to make your space bigger and more open when you are renting or selling your house for maximum dollars. 

These simple hacks in using color can give illusions to make a room seem larger or taller in space and also changes the feel of the space to make them cozier, warmer, more relaxed and happier.  You can incorporate them while staging in a vacant space, an occupied space and even virtually if you are decorating the home.  All in all, it will definitely add to your bottom line with these simple ways.

We love to hear from you and if you need to bounce ideas or have questions, you are never alone to make all the decisions. We are open ears and ready to help you with suggestions and input.  Click here to get a FREE CHAT WITH A STAGER.

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Amy Silas

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Amy Silas