Whether it’s a palatial master suite or big enough for a single bed, a bedroom often serves as a person’s sanctuary, a retreat from the world. That’s why choosing the right paint colors for bedrooms forms such an important task in home decorating.
Unfortunately, the helpful folks at the home improvement, paint and hardware stores only make the problem worse with a wide variety of paint samples. So instead of making yourself dizzy looking at an array of colors, step back and think about what you hope to accomplish with the task of painting a bedroom.
For starters, a bedroom is where people spend a third of their lives asleep. The colors on the walls can make it easy or harder to get rest. For example, if you should forget that darker colors make rooms seem smaller and so paint the room with say, deep chocolate brown, right away the bedroom is going to see like a dungeon, no matter how well lighted. That might be good if you want to depress someone, but a sense that the walls are closing in on you isn’t going to be conducive to sleep.
On the other hand, choosing lighter colors doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re going to be stuck with pastels in the bedroom. Lighter colors will indeed expand the room’s appearance, but that doesn’t tie you to candy pastels. The difference is in the shade of the color and the tone it brings to the room.
Given that neutrals can enhance a home’s resale value, many people opt for a neutral palette throughout the house, including in the bedroom. There’s nothing wrong with that idea. Off-white, eggshell, nutmeg, cream, honeysuckle, ivory, pale mocha, and more, the neutral palette can have some very warm and inviting shades in it. Many of these paint colors will tend to have a yellow undertone to them that serves to lighten the room’s mood, but it’s not so yellow that it restricts the room’s color scheme to just a few choices.
The psychology of color teaches that certain colors evoke specific emotions in people. For instance, colors with red and yellow in them tend to feel energetic, while blues and greens are more relaxing. This is another of the keys to choosing the right colors for a bedroom, namely paying attention to the emotions you feel when you look at certain colors. Once you’re in tune to the way colors make you feel, try to imagine that color on the bedroom walls. Could you stand to look at a lot of that color, day in and day out? What’s more, could you go to sleep with that color on the walls?
Sometimes a more muted shade of a favorite will work in a bedroom colors scheme. For instance, colors with a touch of earth tones such as brown or black in them form excellent bedroom color schemes. These muted shades are more calming, both to the eye and to the emotions.
In addition to neutrals, muted browns and greens are popular bedroom colors right now, in part because of the global environmental movement. What’s more, as with neutral shades have an earthy undertone, the right shades of green and brown evoke a sense of being surrounded by nature, which has a calming effect. Some of these shades can be a light olive green or a sage green, combined with touches of light mocha.
The ultimate in restful bedroom colors has always been blue in soft, calming shades. Paint colors in sky blue through a soft blue-green all have worked well to provide the relaxed mood that’s essential for a bedroom.
One Response
Well, it get’s interesting for me when I get to pick the colors up :)) It’s crazy thinking you will have your one day choice following you allover the room for the rest of some good years of your life…