How to Bring Bold Paint Colors into Your Home
We love to talk about different finishes for a space and paint is one our favorite tools for creative finishes. The world of paint can be an overwhelming maze of colors, shades, and catchy names. When you finally choose a color, so many factors can impact the finished look of the paint including the selected finish, time of day, and lighting in the room. In an earlier blog post this year, we talked about some of our favorite neutral paint colors. As much as we love the transformative power of a stunning white paint, we want to encourage ways to integrate brighter colors into your home. Here’s a look at a few ways we have added pops of bright paint colors to our clients’ homes.
House Beautiful Kitchen of the Month
Kitchen cabinetry can be a great place to play with paint color. A safe way to choose a color for cabinets is to pull a shade from the backsplash color or from patterned tiles in the kitchen. This will avoid clashing colors and bring cohesion to the room. Fitting with the style of the kitchen, we chose to go with a more matte finish in this example, but for higher impact you can amp up color with a gloss finish.
Wallpaper Accent Walls
Don’t be afraid to use paint and wallpaper together in a room. The effects can be dynamic and allow you to minimize the overuse of a bold color or lively wallpaper in smaller spaces. To start, select a wallpaper and pull the paint color from a similar shade within the print or start with a favorite color and find a wallpaper to correspond. The colorful accent wall will act as the centerpiece in the room, while the walls will create a backdrop for the rest of the furnishings to shine.
Oakland Hills Kid’s Bedroom
Looking to use a bright color but aren’t ready to fully commit to a floor to ceiling finish? Try experimenting in smaller ways. Painting the ceiling a bright color is an unexpected and playful way to use color. It will create a great conversation piece without overwhelming your space. In this case, we painted the spaces between the ceiling beams and left the rest of the walls neutral. The color gives off an ambient glow that fills the entire room.
Oakland Hills Dining Room
If you have built-in cabinetry, ornate wall applications, or ceiling details, strategic uses of paint can help highlight these architectural details in your home. For coffer ceilings, place a bright color in the coffer to allow for a bold color within a recessed space. Depending on your personal style, that may be enough color but you can also go further by painting the walls the same color. While this ceiling detail has a traditional aesthetic to it, the bright hues add an updated, modern feel.
San Francisco Style Library
Have you selected a bold color that you want to take centerstage? By adding a high-gloss finish to the paint you can bring a glamorous and luxurious feel to the space. A good paint rule is that your walls should usually be the same color or darker than your trim. You can always paint your trim the same color as your walls. In this case, the wall color goes from the floor all the way to the ceiling, including ceiling trim. This helps give the effect of higher ceilings and works well in smaller spaces.
If you’re looking for help with color selection for your home, our consultation services are perfect for paint selection. We would be more than happy to meet and discuss how to make the best color choices for your home.