You’ve done your research, you’ve crunched the numbers, you’ve talked to your partner, and come to a decision: it’s time to paint your house. This is an exciting and exhilarating time for you and your home whether you recently purchased it, are about to put it on the market, or are just needing to change up the color scheme.
Painting can completely transform the look and feel of a room or home exterior, but what are the most important things to consider before you hire those painters? There are definitely plenty of things not to do when it comes to painting. In this blog, we’re going to explore some of the biggest paint mistakes that people tend to make when changing up their colors.
Neglecting Natural Light
It is simply not by accident that most basements are painted with lighter colors because light paint does an amazing thing to a space with few or no windows. The light that does come into a room will reflect on anything that it can. So if the walls are white or light-colored, a room will actually be lighter. People run into trouble when they paint rooms with no natural lighting dark colors with no reflecting capabilities. When it comes to your windowless room, you might love your deep color choice at the start, but down the road, your room might start to feel drab and depressing.
Too Matchy-Matchy
Have you ever walked into a room and everything in the room was the exact same color? If everything in a room is the same of a similar hew, your space can be a little bit off-putting, to say the least. You definitely don’t want the entire room to look like a blur because this tends to get boring and gives nothing for the eye to go to. To avoid this, make sure that there is a nice contrast with the colors that are present in the room. Think “coordinating” rather than “matching.”
Choosing a Color That is Too Bright
Have you ever tried to read a piece of paper that was a neon color and your eyes almost had to work overtime to try and get the gist of the words on the page? Think of your bright walls as having the same effect. When you choose too bright of a color, it can easily overwhelm the entire room and make that color the only thing that stands out about a room that is surely full of your lovely furniture and decor. To avoid this, try and choose a color that is similar to the bright shade you were originally thinking of, but just a few shades deeper. You’ll probably be much happier with this in the long run.
Not Considering The Floor Color
For some reason, when making choices, many of us forget about matching our paint colors to the color of our floors. The biggest problem to avoid when trying to keep your floors and walls in good standing with one another, is to paint your walls a color that’s too similar to the color of the floors. So if your floors are a medium brown, you will probably not want to paint your walls a color that is either too close to that, or a color that doesn’t match the floors at all. The best course of action is to pick out a wall color that will coordinate well with your floor color. Again, we don’t want them to match, and we don’t want them to clash, we want them to coordinate.
Cutting a Room in Half With Color
We’ve all heard the importance of not dividing an open floor plan and if you haven’t, the idea is simple: don’t ruin a nice, big, open space by dividing it with a couch or other piece of furniture. Well, the idea is similar when thinking about paint. Many people with open concepts choose one color for the kitchen area, one color for the dining room area, and sometimes, even a third color for the living room area. That’s simply too much, folks. You are almost defeating the purpose of an open concept by creating the illusion of multiple rooms. Think long and hard before using more than one color in an open concept space.
Painting your house should be a time that’s really exciting for you. It should be something that gives your home a fresh feel and unique style. Just make sure that you learn from other people’s mistakes and think about your color choice before you make them. That way, you’ll be satisfied with your colors for years to come.
And if you have questions about paint colors and techniques, or you’re looking for a great paint contractor in the Vancouver area, contact our experts at Fresh Paint On Demand! We’d love to give you a free quote for your paint job!