Adding Value with Your Colour Scheme

Painting your home is an incredibly important process, it can help a room look larger, brighter or warmer, all of which create the foundations for you to go ahead and personalise your home.

A recent survey undertaken by Unhook Communications has revealed millions of consumers are spending on their homes as a result of lockdown. Claire Gamble, managing director, says:

“We know from speaking to our clients and contacts in the home interiors industry that many have seen a rise in sales over the last couple of months as people are spending more time at home and are looking to improve their spaces. With our research showing that many consumers are planning further home improvements over the coming months, these are promising signs for retailers.”

This survey indicates that 75% of us are planning further improvements next year, including decorating, kitchens and bathroom renovations and building extensions. To learn more about this survey click here.

Colours Influence your Emotion

Certain colours and shades of paint can influence your emotion so it’s important to put lots of consideration into your decisions so you create a wellbeing home.

Factors to Consider When Selecting your Decor Colours

Let's help you make the right choices when it comes to deciding on your painting options. For those of you who are intending to sell, implementing the correct painting strategy will add value to your home and make it easier to sell. Yes this is true. Decorating is one of the simplest yet most dramatic ways of enhancing the value of your home.

#1: Choosing Colours

The first step to creating a brilliant colour scheme is choosing the right colours for you based on your lifestyle needs.

There are many things to consider when approaching this task, for example how will you be using the space, what furniture will you be putting in each room? For the best styling result, it’s important to plan your colours in accordance with the key furniture pieces in the room, including their shade and materials used to construct them. In a sitting room for example, the sofa is likely to be the key furniture piece so use this to draw your inspiration. If it’s made of a soft fabric material, it tends to lend itself to a more cozy, warm feel so why not accompany this with warmer shades such as a warm muted grey - what do you think of this example below?

Image: Pinterest/Showroom2

A particular paint colour that achieves a similar look to that one in the image is Farrow & Ball’s Charleston Gray, shown below on the wall.

Image: Designer Paint

Alternatively, brown sofas (which remain extremely popular), particularly leather sofas, work well with deep colours such as greens, blues and so on. What do you think of this design? For more ideas on how to tie in brown leather sofa into your colour scheme, read here.

Image: Carson Downing

Certain colours also have the potential to change a room’s atmosphere drastically - a plain white shade can make the room feel airy and open. It can also be used very effectively to showcase artwork. Painting all walls and the ceiling with a clear white shade can open and illuminate a room that may have previously felt quite stuffy and shut off.

Similarly a light faded blue colour can give the illusion of a sky above if used on an outside porch. This may come in useful for closed off rooms that don’t get much light or small sheltered outdoor spaces.

#2 Consider your "Finish" Options

There’s a lot to consider when deciding on what paint types to use. For example depending on which room you’re decorating, you may want to consider using paint with a gloss rather than matt finish. Using gloss paint in a kitchen for example, allows you to clean walls easily as this paint finish is wipeable. It's also great to use when you have your children and need to keep wiping down walls to remove their fingerprints! There are also other paints which are wipeable such as Dulux's Easycare Washable & Tough Matt Emulsion Paint range. Learn more here.

Unhooked Communication’s survey also revealed that a staggering 72% of households invested in new interior products for their home over the last two months. The most popular items were wallpaper and paint (22%).

#3 Use Paint Placement to Adjust the Shape and Size

You’ll be surprised at the true potential of paint - it can completely change the perceived size of a room. Why is this? Using the same colour theme throughout makes the room look bigger and using a different colour makes the room look smaller. Also using different colours on different walls can dramatically the dynamics of the perceived size of the room!

This useful guide below, is a great way to see the dramatic impact of how using colours on different walls change the perceived size of a room.

Image: artuiTK

Making a Room Appear Larger

If you have a room which is a little on the cosy side, you can change the perceived size. Use white on all the walls and ceiling to make the room appear larger. Also use white on all the woodwork and covings. This is a classic approach loved by interior designers the world over.

Making a Room Look Cosier

Deep and darker colours are a great way to create a cozy room. Creating zones within that room will also make it feel cosier.

If you’d like to learn more about how to select the appropriate colour ranges for the relevant rooms, read on.

Dining Room / Kitchen

The thought process that goes into the interior design of a dining room or kitchen has many unique conditions compared to other rooms. For example, white paint may not be as hard wearing because this is such a high intensity space. It’s important to take into account the colour and design of cabinetry, dining tables and any other key pieces of furniture when deciding what colour to choose for your walls.

Bedroom

Your bedroom is your sanctuary. In most cases this is where you’ll have the most freedom in terms of expressing your personality, so be creative. Make sure to consider the feel of the room before deciding on any options, does it feel too small? too sterile? too cold or too warm looking?

Consider how the design of the furniture will fit with your choice of paint colour - an antique bed frame may look a little out of place against a modern paint design. Also consider how the paint style can compliment the placing of your furniture and windows, for example you could use a contrasting colour on the wall behind your bed.

Bathroom

There are many things to consider when it comes to painting your bathroom. First of all, will you be using tiles on the walls and floor? If so what colour? Make sure these compliment one another. White tiles and muted paint colours go well together. Cool colours often work quite well with white tiles for example. A simplistic all-white look to your bathroom may be a good option if it’s on the small side and then you can use accessories to add pops of colour.

However you decide to implement your colour design plan in your flat, development or house, make sure to commit to both the practical and aesthetics. Choosing a well thought out colour scheme and developing an effective painting plan can not only make a property feel like home, it can also add real value to your home when you come to selling.