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Interior paint colors – tips on choosing the right one

Friday, November 28th, 2008

Interior paint colors are very important when you want to improve the look of your house or office. This is especially true when you are a real estate agent – a fresh coat of paint colors will bring you a long way.

Here are some tips that can help you:

How can the color affect the people?
This is the first thing that you need to know about color and color choice. When choosing the paint colors that you want, you need to consider the effects of the color to the people that comes into your room.

It is easy to forget that there certain colors have subtle psychological effects on people. For example, blue brings a calming effect while red instills passion and desire. You need to be wary of these small details so as to create the perfect look for your home.

What to hide?
The paint color that you choose can help you in two different ways. First, the right paint color can help in emphasizing the parts of the interior that you want to be highlighted. Conversely, the right paint color can also help you in hiding the flaws and imperfections that your interiors may have.

You can use colors in drawing people’s attention away from that certain angle while focusing on your interior’s best characteristics.

Are there tools that can help you?
Finally, you should also be aware of the different tools that can help you in identifying the color that you want. Paint samples and color wheels come in handy here. However, you need to keep in mind that the final color may slightly differ from the actual color that you will be having. Here, experience plays a big factor and you may want to consult paint professionals if you are not sure of what you are going to do.

There are a variety of reasons why people want to redecorate or renovate their interior paint colors. Whatever your reasons maybe, these tips will surely help you out.

What’s the best way to get Paint Color Ideas?

Sunday, November 9th, 2008

It’s quite natural to get the urge to give your home a fresh coat of paint once in a while, since color is one way of expressing the transience of human emotion and ideas.  The stumbling block to this urge, however, is the rather tedious task of getting good paint color ideas.  How do you pick out a good color to color your house with?

The massive selection of paint colors available on the market nowadays affords a person an infinite number of options with which to color their house, but for simplicity’s sake, we will narrow down the options to three: (1) paint color ideas with periods in mind (2) paint color ideas suited for modern living (3) and paint colors suited to where you live.

First off, paint color ideas from periods.  Home magazines featuring rustic and period-themed houses will often sport colors that are a throwback to colonial, pre-war, or even pre-settlement times.  These colors may be quite easy to find, since they are quite basic, although the factor that makes the difference is the aging effect time has on color.  What used to be white may eventually age into something way off the original color.  Best not to chug gallons of gasoline from driving from paint store to paint store just to find a matching color from a period, but rather, seek out online paint stores that will premix colors to your specifications.

Next, getting paint color ideas from modern living.  Living in urban sprawls will often assail a person with rich, vivid, and oftentimes, out of this world colors, owing to the fact that most people living in urban areas often have the urge to become different from the rest seek a way to express their individuality.  This will often prompt them to grab the opportunity to become original and express this originality through their surroundings, most notably, where they live.  Add to that the growing awareness of the effect that color has on the moods and emotions of people, and homeowners are bound to seek out the colors that best express their emotions and ideals.  Modern living will often give paint color ideas based on how a person wants to feel, such as creativity, often expressed by shades of red, calmness, expressed by shades of blue, or liveliness, expressed by shades of green.

Finally, we have paint colors ideas inspired by the actual place where the house is located.  This is most evident when the house is situated somewhere near a woodland area, or even areas near a body of water, just basically near a place where one can commune with nature.  Houses near wooded areas will often be colored similarly, sporting organic colors such as shades of green, brown, and even some yellow and red.  Houses near bodies of water tend to take in some “aquatic” colors, such as white and shades of blue and green.  Some will even take to having shades of grey or even colors close to the color of the sand.

Whatever of these three you may choose to get your paint color ideas from, or even if you have your very own method of selecting your personal color combination, bear in mind that a paint color project in your house is a long term project, and it is something that tends to stay with your house for a long time, so it would be a good idea to really think it out well first.

How do I pick an exterior paint color?

Tuesday, October 28th, 2008

Making the outside of your house look every bit as beautiful as the inside is quite a task, and most times, unless you get professional help, it will be one of the most daunting tasks you will ever undertake in your projects at home.  Other than a beautiful exterior, another to thing to consider is what particular exterior paint color is predominantly seen when the house is viewed.  Your house may have a truly beautiful exterior, but if the exterior paint color is way off, it could look funny, or even downright ugly.

So how do I pick an exterior paint color that won’t make my house look like it was painted by an absolute amateur?  Here are some things you should really dwell on before you begin painting the exterior of your dwelling.

Location

Houses nowadays have been known to feature almost every color in the rainbow when it comes to exterior paint colors, but this does not necessarily mean that you should indeed paint your house with every color of the rainbow.  The sheer number of color options merely allows you to have a wider selection when it comes to deciding what color the outside of your abode should be.  In this case, consider the location of your house.  In choosing a color for your house, it would be better to pick a color that compliments the surrounding of the house rather than make the house stand out like a sore thumb.  As an example, a house in California, where the weather is bright and sunny most of the time, is best painted in warm and neutral tones, to better compliment the atmosphere and climate of the locale.  Colors such as beige, wheat, soft yellow, and cream will do quite well in this type of weather.  Houses near the southwestern side, meanwhile, tend to take more to the colorful shades, such as those seen during festivities in neighboring Mexico.  Colors such as bright and deep shades of blue and red are well suited here.  Houses near the woodland areas would best be given colors that showcase the best of nature, such as deep shades of brown and green.

Architecture

Another thing to consider is how was the dwelling built?  Houses in different areas vary from the usual fare of modern living, to the more classical and periodic style of houses, and even all the way to the post modern stylings of a growing number of houses today.  Some colors compliment certain architectural styles, while some colors are sure to destroy even the most well-designed of houses.  A period dwelling, for example, will look quite silly if painted in hot, vivid, and pastel colors, while a post-modern house will look definitely drab if colored withe the tame and passive colors reserved for the classically designed houses.  Pick a color that is traditionally deemed appropriate for a certain type of house.

These are just two considerations in picking exterior paint colors for your house.  There are so much more to really ponder, but at the end of the day, all you really need to do is experiment and see which looks best with your house, and if you are pleasantly satisfied with the end product, then what more needs to be said?

Things to do before you get your house paint colors on

Tuesday, October 21st, 2008

A lot of times, many homeowners are so excited and psyched about being able to purchase the house paint colors they like that they often forget some very essential things that should be done before the actual paint is slapped on. This oversight often leads to disappointment later on, when the paint dries and reveals a painted surface that is less then satisfactory, leaving the homeowner with the option of leaving the ugly imperfection as it is, or stripping away the paint and fixing the imperfection underneath. Both scenarios are equally frustrating and tedious, so why not nip the problem at the bud?

It is of the utmost importance that the surface to be painted is thoroughly checked for imperfections before the paint is applied. In cases of imperfections, there are several ways to deal with them, and make sure a surface that is smooth and even enough for a coat of paint is achieved.

Houses that have seen years of living in and scores of families are bound to bear the marks of habitation. These marks include scuffs, cracks, nail holes, and gaps in the walls. This is unavoidable, as wear and tear is a natural consequence of being inhabited. The best way to deal with this is to patch up what can be patched up or replace sections that cannot be patched up. Removing these imperfections is absolutely essential to achieving an even and smooth surface to paint on without having those unsightly bumps and indentations after the paint has dried. A good way to deal with the smaller and more manageable imperfections, indentations and holes is by using putty to fill them in. Putty makes for a malleable filling agent that sets well, easy to shape, and is a good medium to paint over. After the holes and imperfections have been filled in, the surface must be absolutely even, so the patched surface must be sanded over until it is even with the rest of the wall.

Surprisingly enough, a lot of people tend to overlook other sources of imperfections on the surface while painting over it. Holes, gaps, and indentations are not the only sources of imperfection on a surface. Each and every house is bound to have additional occupants in it other than the family. Insects and rodents have been known to make their homes inside houses, and as such, they also tend to leave their mark of inhabiting the house, leaving cobwebs and droppings and other detritus that we often look over when we paint over a surface in the house. These small things that get painted over also leave imperfections in paint coat, as small as they are. Even something as trivial as clumped dust or dirt will lead to an imperfection when painted over, so be sure to brush away and thoroughly clean the surface to be painted over to be sure there won’t be lumps later on when the paint dries.

It goes without saying that there are things on the wall or other surfaces that you don’t want to paint over, such as curtain rods, switch plates, picture hooks, protruding nails, and hung picture frames. Remove these from the wall or surface before starting to paint, or if they cannot be removed, simply cover them with newspaper and tape the edges to make sure paint does not seep into the edges.

Living in a house will familiarize you with the very annoying phenomenon known as the stain. Stains can come from anywhere, spilled food that didn’t get cleaned thoroughly, crayons from when the kids had a go at the wall, even moisture seeping in from somewhere between the walls. Paint over this and you are bound to see some nasty discoloration going on in that particular spot.

Lastly, unless you plan to color the entire room from ceiling to walls to floor in the same color, be sure to cover firmly areas you do not want to be colored in the same paint as the one you are painting with. It’s not up to the wall paint color to discern where it should and shouldn’t go. Cover areas you don’t want to drip paint on with layers of newspaper, and tape the edge of the newspaper firmly, so as to ensure nothing seeps over.