…for Every Room In the House. Making good color choices will take a little bit of effort, but let’s preface this information with this little tidbit – there is NO wrong or right answer for the question:
“What Color Should I Paint This?”
The truth is you should always be surrounding yourself with colors that speak to you and avoid colors that don’t please you! With that said, the following are some helpful suggestions to consider if you find you’re stuck in a color rut.
Good Color Choices for your Hallways & Entryways
For Hallways and Entryways, neutral colors work to transition the space as it leads to other areas of the home. The also don’t promote themselves! If you are using lots of colors in the various rooms, the hallways in their neutrals can bridge the gap between a various bright or bold color choices.
As an alternate, the foyer can also be an excellent place to experiment or have a little fun! Think outside the box. Maybe even something rich and moody like doing black or red?!
Good Color Choices for your Living Room
For the Living Room, neutral colors such as creams and grays for walls, sofas, and chairs are safe and easy choices for the living room, but accent with colors to suit your family and/or environment in either warm or cool colors. Cooler colors work well for living and family rooms that will be used for downtime and reading, and warmer colors for living and family rooms will promote cozying up and conversation.
Good Color Choices for your Bedroom
For the bedroom, think of calming, peaceful colors such as blues and greens. Spiritual and romantic colors such as purple also work well in the bedroom retreat. Neutrals are always a safe and soothing choice in the bedroom.
Good Color Choices for your Dining Room
For the Dining Room or Eating Area, warmer colors will stimulate the appetite and conversation. Even if you go neutral, think a warm neutral! Shades of apricot and orange (but don’t let ORANGE scare you…think about earthy terra cottas). They will evoke enthusiasm and excitement without being overpowering.
Good Color Choices for your Bathrooms
For the Bathroom or Spa-type area, a cool, tranquil, healing color such as green is perfect. White is often used in bathroom areas because it makes small spaces seem larger and symbolizes cleanliness. I LOVE to use white towels. They look fresh and clean and as a bonus…you can get them REALLY clean with bleach.
SPLURGE: Toss out and donate ALL old towels and spring for new, all white bath and hand towells, and wash cloths!
Good Color Choices for Children’s Bedrooms
For a child’s room using cool colors (blues, greens) will soothe and relax your little beasties. Warm colors (reds, oranges)are great and stimulating for playtime. Avoid bright yellow in large quantities as it can cause siblings to fight more easily and babies to cry more frequently. Bright pinks are wonderful to stimulate the imagination, but very light shades can cause sleepiness or even laziness (not conducive to “cleaning your room” and we really want them stimulated for THIS task!).
Color Tools:
Pinterest is a great resource (of COURSE!) to get you started.
Sherwin-Williams is my go-to paint brand. They have a great little app you can check out if you’d like to select colors from an inspiration item: Color-Snap
HGTV is FULL of tips and advice – CRAZY rabbit hole to go down, but here’s a link to 15 tips to help :). You’re welcome.
Whatever you choose, be sure to get a real, life sample of paint and test in three to four places in the room and watch it in various times of day and lighting. Read more here.
