How Your Interior Paint Color Can Effect Your Mood

Painting Company Orlando FL

Home decorating can usually be boiled down to one simple word: aesthetics. When painting an interior room in the home, homeowners might consider paint colors based on what catches their eye first, a specific piece they plan on placing in the room or recent color trends. While painting a home with neutral colors often means the paint will go with everything, it also means your mood could be negatively affected without you even knowing.

Depending on your age, gender and other personal aspects, colors and their variations have been proved to produce varied, unconscious reactions. However, most groups of colors create the same effect. And colors don’t only change your mood; they can also change the size and shape of your room and the furnishings inside of it.

These facts can make choosing paint colors an intimidating process, but we’re here to tell you what you need to know to make the best decision. It’s important before you begin choosing paint to know what kind of mood you’re hoping to create. Also be sure to keep in mind how these colors make you feel personally. So … Let’s get in to the colors and what it is they do to affect your daily life.

Red

Red is the most intense color on the wheel. Associated with energy and passion, red raises your energy levels and gets the adrenaline going. Whether its promoting appetites or conversation, red can be a very stimulating color. That makes it a great suggested color for the dining or living room. Or even painted in the entryway, it can make a striking first impression.

This color has been shown to raise blood pressure, heart rate and pulse, however, so if you want to paint a bedroom this color maybe use muted red variations to prevent over stimulation.

Orange

Orange increases your appetite so it may be a color to stay away from when painting the kitchen area. But other than that orange is a welcome color that’s full of energy. Invoking excitement and enthusiasm it’s a great idea for a child’s room.

This color also promotes feelings of happiness and warmth. But keep in mind that bright variations of orange can be a bit much unless you’re putting them in a home gym. Here brighter variations will help create energy, but muted oranges make good dominant colors almost anywhere.

Yellow

Yellow is a happy color that promotes feelings of optimism and cheerfulness. When your eyes take in this color, it actually helps your brain to release more serotonin. Yellow can increase concentration and promote communication and creativity. It opens up spaces, making it good for bathrooms and other small or poorly lit areas.

As uplifting as this color is, yellow is not a good choice for your main color scheme. Overexposure to bright yellows can cause fatigue and anxiety. It can cause frustration and anger as well; studies show that yellow colors are more likely to incite tempers as well as cause babies to cry. If you do go with yellow, the color is great for ceilings to increase light, or in soft, buttery variations.

Green

One of the most popular home painting colors, green has a refreshing, calming effect. Putting one in mind of all the greens of nature, green makes you feel welcome and at home. This color is very restful and combines the best qualities of the colors that create it, refreshing blue and cheerful yellow.

Used as a main decorating color, green can go anywhere- in the kitchen to cool things down, in the bedroom to relieve stress, in the living room to promote comfort and unwinding- and everywhere you put it, you’ll feel restorative, tranquil emotion. Refreshing to the eye, with green you can go crazy.

Blue

The color blue is the exact opposite of the color red- slowing the pulse, and lowering heart beat and blood pressure. This color, as popular as green, is peaceful and tranquil. Blue makes your body produce calming chemicals that help soothe and relax. For this reason, and the fact that it’s conducive to sleep, blue is often used in bedrooms. But blue can work a lot of places. Helping to improve focus and productivity, it’s good for study areas and gyms. Considered a clean color, it’s good for laundry rooms and bathrooms.

When using blues, it is best to go with soft colors. Dark colors can produce feelings of sadness and depression. Blue colors that look good on the paint chip may end up looking “chilly” on the wall, especially in rooms without much sun.

Purple

Purple is a color associated with royalty, wealth and sophistication. The color is also wistfully feminine and romantic. Depending on the shades used, the room can be contemporary and dramatic (dark colors) or youthful and restful (lighter colors). This color is one to stimulate the creative parts of the brain so it could be one to avoid in an adult bedroom unless a softer color is used. However, this color is a favorite for the bedrooms of adolescent girls. Some purples can appear artificial, so this color can be a tricky one to work with.

Brown

Brown is a very sturdy color and a staple in house painting. A favorite color along men, brown promotes the idea of security and genuineness, while producing feelings of warmth. The color is cozy, reliable and safe. Rich hues of brown lead to intimacy and togetherness in places like the living room or the bedroom.

Browns can come across as boring colors, but with a bit of creativity you can bring it to life with accent colors or another dominant one. Brown is the color of the earth, like green, when you bring it in to your home you are bringing nature inside and promoting comfort.

Neutrals

These colors are good for their flexibility. White can make your room feel airy and open by giving a new sense of space to the room. Aside from the old associations of cleanliness and purity, white can make you feel at peace with the simplicity that it brings. It produces a crisp, finished feel to contrast with the pieces in the room and can go with anything. Grey can be a warm or cool color depending on the lighting and décor around it. It compliments many other colors, especially those mixed to create it. Grey promotes creativity and feelings of sophistication and is good as both a dominant and accent color.

Black is a good color for balance and grounding, but is best used as an accent color. Black can influence feelings of staying indoors and in large amounts it can create feelings of melancholy or hostility. But the color itself is one of authority, timelessness, and drama. So striking as the color is, too much can be overpowering.

Choosing your color

As you can see, the colors scheme in your rooms can affect you a lot more than you think. The colors that you use to paint your home can have a profound effect on the emotional wellbeing of your family. It’s important for you to put some thought in to your paint colors aside from what will look the best. Now that you know the basics of how colors can affect you, you can get started on figuring out your needs and go from there. As previously stated, do keep in mind what affect the colors have on you, and do not ignore your own experiences with them.

If you have questions or would like a bit more help with your paint selection process, feel free to contact us here or call us directly at 407.877.3210. We want your paint color to be something you can be happy with.