When you’re deciding on interior paint colors for your home, you may simply be looking for hues that speak to your personal style. While the colors on your walls should be reflective of your personality, it’s important to know that the colors you ultimately decide on can also affect your mood and thoughts.
Psychological Effects of Room Color
Reactions to certain colors and groups of colors generally produce similar reactions in people. Scientific research has shown that colors can either boost our mood, make us feel calm, or even trigger aggressive or depressed responses. But, what causes these reactions?
According to Psychology Today, the emotional responses we have to colors has everything to do with a color’s saturation (how pure a color is) and brightness (how light a color seems) levels. When paint color achieves the perfect balance of saturation and brightness, it can generate the types of reactions you desire when spending time in different rooms of your home. Here are some examples:
- If you paint your walls in a less saturated, bright green color it can make you feel more relaxed and calmer.
- If you paint your walls in a very saturated, less bright blue color it can make you feel energized.
Paint Colors That Boost Your Mood
It’s important to choose colors wisely when painting the interior of your house as the shades you decide on will affect you, your family, and anyone else who spends time inside your home. The following colors tend to generate more positive responses when painted on your walls.
Cool Paint Colors
- Blue: When you paint a room blue, it can be a winner with most everyone. It’s soothing, inviting and works incredibly well in bedrooms due to its calming effect. Look for blues that are either dark (like navy) or muted (like a gray-blue) to create a peaceful atmosphere.
- Green: Green is also a great choice for producing positive emotions. A sage green can be tranquil and relaxing, while a darker, more saturated green can invigorate the senses. Try using a saturated, less bright green in your home office or crafting studio, or a less saturated, muted green in your bedroom.
Warm Paint Colors
- Yellow: Yellow is a joyful color that can generate positive, optimistic emotions. A muted yellow can be perfect for kitchen walls when you want to bring some subtle energy to the space. Yellow can also stimulate you and your guests’ appetites.
- Orange/Red: As humans, we are naturally drawn to warm colors. Orange-red hues on your walls can lend coziness to a room and make anyone who enters feel comfortable. Try a burnt orange in your dining room to create a friendly, inviting atmosphere for gathering around the dinner table.
Neutral Paint Colors
- White: White can be a beautiful, refreshing neutral as long as the paint color isn’t too stark. Stark white paint can make people feel uneasy and anxious. If your style is more contemporary, a warm shade of white in your kitchen can create a modern, clean and cozy feeling.
- Black: Yes, you can paint your walls black and not feel depressed as long as you don’t paint the whole room black. Black hues are actually considered the new neutral paint colors because they go with practically everything. Consider painting black on an accent wall to add modern sophistication and relaxation to your bedroom.
- Brown: If you want to feel content, secure, and one with nature, brown walls can be ideal in a bedroom or other main living areas.
- Gray: Classic gray walls offer elegance and can liven up your space when they have warm undertones. Consider painting your living room walls in a shade of greige (mixture of gray and beige) to give off a warm, inviting feeling.
Professional Interior Painting Services Can Positively Impact Your Mood
While choosing the right paint colors for your home interior can inspire positive emotions, color is just one part of the painting process. Entrusting your painting project to professionals will ensure that the best shades and sheens are chosen and your paint color lasts. Our professional interior painters offer the following services to help you stress less, relax and enjoy your new paint colors for years to come:
- Free Paint Color Consultations: If you need additional help deciding between a few different shades of interior paint, a professional color consultant will come to your home and help you choose colors that will positively impact your mood.
- Free Color Swatches Mailed to You: Once you narrow down your choices, we will send you large color swatches that you can tape to your wall. You can sit with the color swatches for a couple days to learn how the colors make you feel.
- Free Digital Painting of Your Home Interior: Sometimes, you just need to see exactly how your walls will work with your chosen paint colors. We can create a digital image of what your room(s) will look like with new color.
- Free Color Try-On Cans of Paint: Get two free color try-on cans of paint from your local paint store so you can paint parts of your walls and see what the color will look like first-hand.
- Free & Fast Quote: An exact, computer-generated quote can be printed in just 10 minutes and hand-delivered to you.
- No Deposit: You will only pay once you see that the paint job is completed properly with the perfect, mood-boosting colors.
- Expertise: Professional painters are experts at what they do. This means your home interior will be painted timely using the proper painting tools and techniques with no messes on your belongings or floor. All you’ll be left with is long-lasting, mood-boosting color on your walls.