A new coat of paint can be one of the easiest ways to transform your Washington DC home’s appearance, inside and out. A simple repaint can be enough to make your home look clean and new again, but with a bit of creativity and a touch of flair, you can turn your home into something stunning. Read on, your home’s fresh new look may be only a few coats of paint away!
Brighten up your home
Used with finesse, bright colors are perfect for livening up your home and creating a vibrant, social atmosphere. Bright colors will lift the mood of rooms where natural lighting is limited and draw attention to the façade of houses where vegetation overpowers the architecture. For rooms that catch a lot of direct sunlight, you might want to save the bright color and make a feature wall of a surface that doesn’t get as much direct light. A feature or accent wall is also great for introducing interesting colors without them becoming too overbearing.
Create the illusion of space
You can add to your visual floor space simply by experimenting with different colors. Lighter colored walls and white ceilings make a small room appear larger. You can enhance this effect by painting trimmings the same color as your walls. Monochromatic color schemes tend not to halt the eye and so create the illusion of a greater area. Another sneaky trick you can use to make your rooms appear bigger than they actually are is to bring the color of the walls into the ceiling with a 6-8inch border. This will fool the eye into thinking that the ceiling begins where the color changes, adding extra visual height to the room. Related: Picking Out the Right Paint Color For Your Home.
Create the illusion of size
The same techniques can be applied to the outside of your house as well. While face-brick walls are stylish, the pattern created by the bricks halts the eye and has the effect of making the surface appear smaller. Plastering and painting the outside of your home creates a smoother surface and hence gives the illusion of size. If the outside of your home consists of horizontal slats, you can apply a similar trick. Lighter colors will create more shadow, creating contrast on slatted surfaces. You can reduce this contrast by having your outdoor slatted surfaces painted a darker color such as a dark grey or deep red, to make your home appear bigger.
Slight variations of color
Pick a color on the outside of a tint wheel. Now move one step towards the center. And another. And another. You’ve just made a palette selection for this kind of project. As opposed to creating contrast to highlight key features, slight variations in color can be used to create depth and interesting visual effects. This technique is perfectly suited to rooms that feature many different surface. By painting each surface a different color, you can highlight the dimensional aspects of the room, such as molding. This technique can also be used on staircases to create an interesting illusion. By painting each vertical plane of a flight of stairs a lighter shade than the one beneath it, the effect is created of the staircase stretching out into the distance. This is caused by the brain interpreting lighter colors as being further away as objects become paler as they move into the distance.
Need help with painting your interiors or exteriors? Make sure to choose experienced professionals that prioritize safety!