Home Paint Color Ideas
Your Moods, Emotions and How They Affect You

Need home paint color ideas? Well, we can understand why. Colors are a really important element in our lives.

Think of how you feel after a few days of bleak, grey, cloudy winter weather.

Now imagine how you feel on a warm, bright, sunny spring day.

The change in your mood could be because of the weather, but it is also the color of the day that has an impact on how we feel.

It has been scientifically proven that colors evoke an emotional response in us and impact our mood. Blues and greens are cool and relaxing; yellows and reds make us alert and increase energy. Because of this scientific fact, you can see how important it is to understand color when you are decorating your home, so that you use color to evoke the most appropriate mood in each room or area of the house.

Color affects different people in different ways. Gender, age, climate and ethnicity all impact how we perceive color and how it impacts our moods. Having said that, there is some commonality in emotional reaction to groups of colors, but the tone or shade of the color makes a difference.

Guide to Home Paint Color Ideas

Here is a list of basic colors and the emotional response they trigger in humans. This over-view will help as a quick reference guide on home paint color ideas when you are deciding on color schemes in different rooms.

• Black. strength, authority, independence, discipline
  
  
• Blue. promotes peace and tranquility, refreshing, cool, relaxing (blue lowers the blood pressure)
  
  
• Green. balancing, normalizing, refreshing, cool
  
  
• Yellow. increases energy and vitality, cheerful, happy
  
  
• Orange. promotes appetite, conversation and goodwill, commanding, cheerful
  
  
• Red. drama, passion, stimulation, empowerment, competitive (red raises the blood pressure)
  
  
• Purple. spiritual, comforting, mysterious, intuitive
  
  
• Pink. affectionate, social, accepting, calming
  
  
• White. energetic, pure, unitifying, empowers any other color used in combination

Colors are grouped together to indicate how they behave when viewed by people. They are active, passive or neutral. In other words, active colors inspire energy and movement, passive blend in and inspire quiet and calm, neutral colors are neither of these but create a fabulous background for other colors to dominate. Let's look at these groups more closely.

Active colors are known as warm colors and autumn tones. The colors in this group are red, yellow and orange. They are energetic, creative, dominating and inspire socialization and conversation. They brighten up a dull area, bring light and life to a room that has little natural light and are good for spaces that have little furniture like halls and entry foyers. They can be dramatic and uplifting when used on one wall of a room as a highlight and feature. Because they inspire creativity, they are a great choice for a craft room, kitchen and study or office.

Passive colors are also known as cool colors and include blue, purple and green. They tend to blend into the background of a room and to be unobtrusive. They form a wonderful backdrop for patterned fabrics in sofas and drapes. They inspire relaxation and a feeling of calm and make an excellent choice for bedrooms and formal living areas.

Neutral colors are neither active nor passive, though they may be warm or cool. The whites, grays, beiges and browns are the neutral, background colors. They create a harmonious effect and link other colors together. Neutrals are a wonderful background for vibrant splashes of color in accessories. The darker tones tend to subdue other colors while white and off-white tend to make other colors more intense. Neutrals work well for trims and doors; they make hallways and other small areas appear more spacious than they really are; they are a good choice for living areas because they go with any color of furnishings.

It is wise to forget about following trends when choosing colors for decorating your home. Trends in color schemes will pass but you and your family will continue to live in your home and be impacted by the colors you choose. Go with colors you like, that make you feel good and evoke the mood that you want the room to have. You cannot go wrong by following this strategy.

Choosing a color scheme can be very daunting for the first time; there are hundreds, maybe even thousands of colors of paint to choose from. A good idea for the beginning decorator is to look at the colors in the fabrics of your furnishings and accessories and use this as a basis for color selection. If you are buying new furniture, go shopping through furniture stores and get an idea of what you will be buying. If you can get a fabric swatch, it will really help you select paint colors.

Now, let's look at how different shades of color behave when they are used in a room.

• Lighter shades are airy and expansive, creating a light feel and making rooms appear larger than they are. They help to add light to a dark or dull area and create a backdrop for bolder colors to be used as accessories.
  
  
• Darker shades are warm and intimate, creating a more sophisticated look. They tend to close a room in and remove the feeling of openness.

Designing a Color Scheme

There are two basic questions that you need to answer before you even start to consider color.

• What is the mood you want to create in the room you are decorating?
  
  
• Which colors are going to help you best achieve the mood you have decided on?

Only you can truly answer the first of these questions because it is your home and room. Think of the purpose the room is designed for, who will be using the room and what type of activity will be carried out in the room.

If you still need a bit of help, here are some hints on what colors to use for some rooms on your house...

• Home Paint Color Ideas for the Bedroom

Armed with these answers and the information on colors that you now have, you will be able to decide on a broad color scheme. For example, if you have a small formal living room that doesn't get much natural light; you might select neutral colors for the walls and trim (to make the room appear larger and lighter) with splashes of warm color for accessories (to create an intimate atmosphere)

When you have decided on a broad color scheme, you can look at paint chips and coordinate them with furnishings, paintings, ornaments etc to match one or two accent colors and create a beautifully coordinated space that suits the mood and function of your room.

Join Our HDI Fan Page on Facebook

• Home Paint Color Ideas: Your Moods, Emotions and How They Affect You
• Bedroom Paint Color Ideas: What Color to Paint a Bedroom
• Relaxing Colors for Rooms: What Colors are Relaxing