Which wall paints help make a room look larger?
Question:Is white good? What are some other good ones?
Answers:
ANY LIGHT SHADE WILL MAKE YOUR ROOM LOOK LARGER. BUT REMEMBER THE MOOD WILL BE DETERMIND BY THE COLOUR.
The colours you chose to paint the interior of your home will have a definite impact on your family's mood, appetite and energy levels. Here are some useful guidelines for choosing a colour...
Colours in the red, orange and yellow groups are referred to as 'warm' colours since they evoke images associated with heat, like fire or sunshine. As a result they also make us feel warm in a psychological sense.
Red
This powerful colour increases blood pressure and heart rate. It often produces feelings of intimacy, energy, passion and sexuality. It also stimulates the appetite and is an excellent choice for dining rooms in the home. Be careful not to over use it, as too much red can make one feel uncomfortable and restless. This dining room with its cherry red walls makes a dramatic statement — the room's furniture in dark hardwoods as well as the gilded picture frames and colourful paintings combine to brighten the room and add points of interest.
Orange
Like red, orange warms a room, but in a less dramatic and passionate way. The mood and attitude of orange is more friendly than fiery; more welcoming than seductive. Orange works well in living rooms and family rooms and is also a good choice for children's bedrooms. Covering the kitchen walls in apricot-yellow paint and teaming it with white work surfaces and units has helped to create a vibrant atmosphere in this kitchen.A good, strong orange used in a kitchen with a lot of natural light will create the illusion of year-round sunshine
Yellow
This colour grabs attention and catches the eye like no other, hence the use of yellow highlighters in offices. In poorly lit foyers and hallways, yellow shows the way. Yellow generally lifts moods, but bear in mind that if it's too bright or strong it may actually cause anxiety in the elderly, young children and infants.
Blues, greens, violets and their intermediates are considered 'cool' colours because of their references to pastoral landscapes and ocean vistas. When we look at these colours they elicit feelings of peace, tranquillity and relaxation
Blue
Soothing blue is an ideal bedroom colour choice for adults and children. But that same blue that lulls us to sleep also suppresses our appetites, possibly because there are very few naturally blue foods. So remember to keep it out of the dining room. Blue is a calming colour, making it an ideal choice to create a sanctuary in your bathroom.
Green
As the dominant colour in nature, we are at home with green anywhere in the house. Light greens work well in bathrooms and living rooms; whilst mid-range greens are a great accent for kitchens and dining rooms. Leafy greens conjure up the best of summer and have been used in this room to highlight its African theme.
Violet
Despite the favourable response violet elicits in children, many adults dislike purples, with rosier shades of violet being somewhat more appealing. Children's bedrooms and play areas may be good places to experiment with this colour family.
Changing your sense of space
Is your bedroom too small? Do you wish your family room to be more intimate? Colour has the power to manipulate our sense of space. Using light hues from one colour family will create an optical illusion of sorts by visually expanding a room. For example, if a ceiling feels too low, bright white can 'raise' your perception of its height. Alternatively, you can paint the walls with vertical stripes to enhance the sense of height. This technique can be applied with great success in a play space for children.
However, if you are trying to make a large room feel cosy and intimate, choose darker shades for the walls to reign in a large space and a darker shade on a tall ceiling to 'lower' it.
If a single colour alone isn't enough, use different colours to create visual breaks. For example, you can divide the wall space horizontally with a dado rail and paint the upper and lower portions different colours. You can also use picture mouldings as an alternative visual device by painting the interior portion a different shade from the rest of the wall.
Colour choice checklist
There are many aspects to consider when choosing an appropriate colour for a room in your house. Follow this checklist to achieve the best results:
Review the adjacent room colours so that you can create some relationship between them and the new paint colour to ensure a sense of flow and continuity.
Look at the exposure the room has, as lots of sunny northern exposure may be a good spot for cool colour tones while a shaded and southerly facing room might be best served with warmer hues.
If you want to manipulate the perceived size of the room with colour, choose an appropriate palate. Use light monochromatic colours and white ceilings to increase the perceived size, and dark bold tones with a darker ceiling colour to shrink the size of the room.
Decide on the mood you want the room to evoke for its inhabitants and visitors and then explore the psychology of colours.
Consider the style or decor of your home. Is it modern, traditional or eclectic? You may want to research colours from different periods like Victorian, Colonial, or Arts & Crafts for the colour roots of an old house or for colours that are appropriate to the period that inspired your home's design details. If you have already chosen the furnishings for the room, bring swatches and samples with you when you are choosing the paint colour.
TIPS
Decorating a room with a neutral background will allow you to change its colour scheme without the need to redecorate. You can achieve this by choosing vivid accent colours for the scatter cushions, vases, lampshades, rugs and other accessories.
Add interest to plain coloured walls with borders - either a dado, picture rail or ceiling cornice.
Use table lamps in a room that has been painted with 'cool' colours, in order to create a cosy glow.
Lay plain, pale carpets on a floor space to make it appear lighter.
light colors always make u'r room look larger... so do bright colors like red/yellow & orange but u may have to wear sunglasses. lol
Any light colored paint will make a room appear larger.
lighter shades
A light color makes the room look larger, you do not need to go with pure white though, maybe an egg-shell would look good, it really depends a lot on the kind of furniture you have
light and bright colors make a room look larger. painting a room a really bright color like red, orange or yellow will NOT make the room blinding. it actually softens the walls compared to stark white.
darker tones make the room very enclosed and cozy feeling.
I hate a solid white room. What makes a room look larger, is furniture placement! Find the focal point of a room (fireplace, picture window, etc,) work around that.
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