Paint Walls With Bold Colors

Who wants the inside of their home to look like a battleship? Spice it up and introduce bold colors to create distinct moods. Look below at the after photo with bold colors! Copyright 2023 Tim Carter

Paint Walls with Bold Colors - It Might Look Fantastic

I’ve had the distinct pleasure to attend numerous editors conferences over the years sponsored by different manufacturers. I’ve toured tool heat-treating hand-tool plants, precision saw-blade factories, small-engine plants, and paint factories to name but a few. Each experience is similar to Christmas morning because I got to see new things that otherwise are hidden from the public for a host of reasons.

One of the most fascinating tours was of a paint factory on the West Coast. Part of the tour was timed so we got to see the early stages of making a batch of interior paint. I believe the size of the vat was at least 5000 gallons but it could have been as much as 10,000 gallons. You need a massive metal stirring paddle to blend all the ingredients. Forget about using a wood stick!

Perhaps the most interesting part of the tour for me was the session spent with the on-staff color expert. This woman appeared to have no less than 20 years experience and she explained to us all the nuances of color, how the slightest shades of color can affect how you feel, and most importantly how distinct colors can control, to a large degree, your mood.

2020-23 Trend is Battleship Gray

Have you toured any new homes recently? If so, you may notice that many interior rooms are painted different shades of gray. Visit an art museum and you might not even notice that the walls are often painted gray. It’s an interesting color that actually is the absence of color. This is why gray is used in art museums so the paintings and photographs don’t compete against the background color of the walls.

Gray is most often created mixing pure white paint with some amount of black pigment. When most people think about color, they tend to think about every other color in the rainbow other than white or black. Gray provides a very interesting background for all other colors you might put in the rooms of your home just as it does in a museum.

All that said, you may be like my son. He purchased a new home that came on the market last spring. The builder had already painted all the rooms a medium gray for the above reason.

While that sounds like a good idea when I toured the house with my son, he said, “Dad, what the heck? I don’t want to wake up each day thinking I’m a sailor on a battleship. It’s just way too much gray! How hard would it be to paint the rooms over?”

I answered him that we could easily repaint half the rooms in the two-bedroom house in just three days. I told him it depended on the colors he’d choose as some lighter colors like yellow might require two coats.

He decided he wanted to do an experiment and go with some very bold colors. I thought he was making a mistake. His mother and I both shared with him that when he sees a color on a small strip of paper that you get at the paint store, once that color is on the wall it almost always appears much darker. This happens because there’s just so much color hitting your eyes vs looking at a sample that’s 2 inches wide and maybe 3/4-inch tall.

He said, “Dad, paint isn’t that expensive and since you’re helping and it doesn’t take long I can always repaint the room.” Oh, how convenient your dad can help you for the price of a free lunch! If you have children, I’m sure you’ve been conscripted to help with projects. To be honest, I loved working on his house.

The first room we painted was his living room. He chose a deep blue color. When I opened the can I gasped as quietly as I could thinking it was a huge mistake. The gray wall color happened to be a superb base and the blue covered it in one coat with ease. It was a bright sunny spring day and much to my surprise after the first wall was finished it looked amazing. I had thought it would make the room appear too small but I didn’t get that feeling. The other benefit to blue is it’s a calming color.

The kitchen was painted a stunning yellow much like a sunflower, the dining room was transformed using a deep spicy reddish brown, and his rear sunroom was coated with a stunning medium green.

What a difference! The blue is stunning in person. The spicy reddish brown is not bad at all with light fabrics on the wall. Copyright 2023 Tim Carter

After we were finished, I had to admit the bold colors in this open-concept house not only looked spectacular, but they also didn’t clash. Once he started to hang paintings and fabrics on the wall, the colors looked even better.

I suggest that if you’re on the fence as to what to do, simply purchase a quart and paint one wall. Realize the color may look somewhat different at night than it does in the day. Experiment with flat paint vs. semi-gloss. You may find that might make a difference. No matter what, if you don’t like the color, you can repaint a typical room in just hours. Be brave! Try a bold color or two and you’ll not think you’re swabbing decks on a battleship when you mop your kitchen floor!

Do you want to feel like a sailor? Then paint the inside of your home like a battleship.

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