Paint colors that will brighten a room can be found in various shades, such as light gray, taupe, mint green, powder blue, light pink, orange, soft yellow, and bright white. These colors can be grounding, neutral, or cozy, and can be used to create a cohesive and inviting atmosphere in your home. Limewash paint gives a room a special feeling, while blue + beige is a popular choice.
Designers use color psychology, lighting, and white paint to create mood, drama, and style in their living room examples. Lighter paint colors like off-whites, light neutrals, pales, and pastels give the illusion of larger, brighter rooms. Pinterest offers inspiration for colors to brighten a room, with turquoise, dark greens, burnt red/oranges, and dark ocean blue all having the ability to brighten up a room even though they traditionally may be considered dark.
White is the best paint for indirect lighting because it is the most reflective. Cooler paint colors help walls recede, making the room feel more spacious and light. Pale shades of grey and blue are recommended for maximum lightening effect. Cool tones, like greens or soft blues, can expand a room, making it feel more open and bathed in light.
Choosing the right finish is crucial when painting walls, with warm shades like soft yellow, light ruby, and cloud blue being great choices. Neutrals like white, off-white, and greige are the most popular paint colors for living rooms, but not everyone will appreciate these trends.
📹 HOW TO PICK COLORS FOR DARK ROOMS | Interior Design 101
Which Colour is best for brightness?
To imbue a space with a sense of warmth, it is recommended to utilize light terracotta or yellow hues in the paint palette. However, it is advised to exercise caution in incorporating brown furniture, as it may overwhelm the room’s ambiance. It is advisable to avoid the use of dark ceiling colors and instead select white or pale tones of green or gold. It is recommended that Tuscan Glade 6 or Maraschino Mocha 6 be used as paint for this purpose. It is advisable to avoid the introduction of brown furniture into the room, in order to maintain a lighter, more expansive appearance.
What is the most attractive house color?
The top 10 exterior paint colors for selling a home include pale yellow, gray, off-white, blue-gray, wheat, white, red, beige, and beige. These colors appeal to today’s buyers and can derail a home sale. Neutral and traditional colors, rather than bold or unorthodox ones, will appeal to the broadest set of buyers. Strategic improvements and updates are the most high-impact way to appeal to buyers.
Pale yellow, gray, off-white, blue-gray, wheat, white, red, beige, and beige are all recommended for home exteriors. Cheery, lighthouse red, beige, and beige are popular options for home exteriors. Unappealing paint jobs can easily lose potential buyers’ interest. Making smart choices and making strategic improvements can help you make the most impact on your home’s sale.
What color paint will brighten a dark room?
Paint can enhance the brightness and vibrance of a room by adding softer, lighter shades like lavender, sunny yellow, or powder blue. This can make even small bathrooms feel spacious. For dark living rooms, consider the purpose and feel of the room. For a home office, deeper blues or greens can create a scholarly mood, while taupe or a muted gray can make it warmer and softer. Paint can also make even small bathrooms feel spacious. Remember to consider the purpose and mood of your living room when choosing paint.
What color is best for a bright room?
Pastel colors with low chroma, such as blues, lavenders, and yellows, reflect light effectively, whereas cooler undertones, including greens and soft blues, can enhance the perceived size of a room. The finish of the paint is of great consequence with respect to the manner in which natural light is utilized. Glossier finishes reflect a greater quantity of light, whereas matte finishes offer a muted and softer visual presentation. Matte finishes are optimal for concealing wall imperfections while simultaneously reducing reflectivity.
What color absorbs the most sunlight?
Darker blues like navy, indigo, and cobalt absorb more sunlight than reflecting it, making them unsuitable for strong sun exposure. Bright reds and pinks, reflecting more UV rays, offer better sun protection. Deep shades of red like burgundy, maroon, and oxblood absorb more sunlight, making them less effective in providing sun protection. Overall, bright reds and bright reds offer varying levels of sun protection.
What color is best to brighten up a home?
Benjamin Moore’s color and design experts offer tips on how to make small rooms look bigger and brighter. They suggest using lighter paint colors like off-whites, light neutrals, pales, and pastels to create the illusion of larger, brighter rooms. They also provide five specific painting techniques to make rooms look bigger, brighter, and more beautiful. For dimmer spaces, a light shade of blue like Smoke 2122-40 is ideal. For rooms without windows, clean white paint with warm, sunny undertones like Swiss Coffee OC-45, Acadia White OC-38, and White Chocolate OC-127 can brighten up the space.
Which wall color reflects more light?
Light reflectance value (LRV) measures a color’s ability to reflect or absorb light. Black is the most absorbent color, with a zero on the LRV scale. Pure white, the most reflective color, is at the other end of the scale at 100. Colors below 50 absorb more light than they reflect, while shades above 50 create a daytime look and add space expansion. All colors reflect light except black. For low-light rooms, use shades that increase the sense of space. White is the best paint for indirect lighting, as it is the most reflective. Neutrals absorb the least amount of light, making them ideal for rooms with little natural light.
How can I make my house feel brighter?
Experts suggest several ways to brighten up your space, including not overdressing windows, replacing exterior doors, keeping windows clean, considering solar tubes, being strategic with lamps and light fixtures, bathing walls with light, and choosing a bright, reflective paint color. Natural light can make us feel better, make spaces look prettier, and make everyday tasks safer and easier. However, many people live in light-challenged spaces, such as Victorian townhouses and basement apartments, with primarily northern exposures.
Good lighting at home is also important for mental health, as humans desire light to see everything and understand the space and shapes. Even if you don’t need to light it well enough to land a 747, good lighting is essential for mental health.
Which color is most beautiful for a house?
In 2023, there are 10 beautiful house colour combinations for walls, including yellow and grey accents, dark blue and hot pink, sea green and gold, and sunny red and yellow sands. These colours can influence moods and provide an advantage for years. The mint green and ivory combination is a soothing color that works well for living rooms, beach houses, and vacation homes. These pastel shades do not interfere with accessories like furniture or plants.
The bold and light pink combination, which brings together two shades of pink, works well on walls that are juxtaposed against one another, creating a focus wall in a room that draws attention. The bold and light shades stimulate the senses by providing a stark contrast with warm tones.
What colours make rooms lighter?
In order to optimize the utilization of the limited illumination in environments with low light levels, it is recommended to utilize glossy paint with a pink hue, such as Amethyst Showers 6 or Dulux Violet Verona 5. It is recommended that architraves, skirting boards, and other moldings be painted in light, reflective paint colors. This will provide the room with structure while maintaining the brightness of the space. This will result in the space appearing brighter and will provide a subtly contrasting tone to the walls.
📹 THESE Paint Colors Will Make Your House Feel Like HOME!
I’ve watched a lot of your articles in the last month as I am trying to repaint ALL of the interior of my home. I have learned things I can’t imagine being taught anywhere else so thank you. Your website should have more views and subscribers. People are missing out. So here I am commenting hoping to effect your views and get you in front of more people like me who need education and guidance. Thank you for the wonderful content.
I have a large north facing fam. room. White walls looked terrible ( caused dark shadows). Tried gray, antique white and other neutrals & all looked drab.l didn’t want yellow. Ended up with light baby blue( old sw color called ” ballet slipper”) which looks great. Not a popular color now but it was all that worked. I have white sofas & lots of white crown moulding plus a khaki seagrass rug.
dark colors can be very surprising! my son picked chrome green in eggshell (LRV 5!!) which is extremely dark (i was a little scared painting the entire small room that color as well as he wanted black trim also. With good accents!) however it’s “bright” and makes the room feel calm and sophisticated not at all dark, cave like or depressing! I was shocked how it feels.
I bought a townhouse and the first floor was so dark, after adding a lot of lights to the living room, it still feels depressing. Then I realized it was the paint, and I asked the seller, the color was Fossil by Benjamin Moore. That’s why I felt like I live in a cave. Then I painted my entire first floor in High Reflective White by Sherwin Williams, it is slightly warmer than Chantilly Lace with a higher LRV. I would say it made a night and day difference. Sometimes I walk to some areas during the day and I was like wow this is bright here.
Thank you for this article! You’re a gem! My north-facing den has windows, but they’re overshadowed by my balcony. I’d been considering a high-gloss or high-sheen flavour of Salamander, since there’s no LRV in the world that’ll make my little jewel-box of a den look airy and expansive, so I might as well try to make it look expensive lol Good to know I’m not totally crazy for choosing dark shades in a low-light room!
Would like all four please…and how the different light reacts with undertones. I tried Balboa Mist in a west facing room with descent natural light, but I found it looking pink/purple. I tried London Fog as well and it looks way darker than swatch..ugh.. also its so hard to recognise undertones in paint, but thats why we have you James, please shed light on us mere mortals🙂
Please review red colors. I want to paint above the chair rail in my dining room BM Hot Tamale; and the trim and above the chair rail Dove White. I love bright colors and I have been living with builder’s white for far too long. Trying also to determine what color to paint the foyer (next to the dining room) and living room (across the foyer from the dining room) so that they do not clash.
Great article, thank you. A show(s) outlining all window directions would be so appreciated. I very much struggle with colour choices, my home is semi-detached, with large East facing windows in the front living room, medium North Facing on the side (with the house next door being a faded red brick), and finally it has a medium sized West window in the rear (my bedroom). Sigh. Lol.
I had old very darkened knotty pine walls in my dining and living rooms. After doing everything else I could to lighten the room- replacing windows, painting the trim white, light colored furniture, etc. So I filled the knotholes, primed with stain blocking kilz, and painted the pine Navajo white, with bright white trim, and leaving a bit of the wood on the mantel and beams and shelves. A huge hassle, but I am happier every time I go in there. The walls still have the three dimensional quality- this was pine planks, not flat panelling.
My house has a large west facing window in the living room. That room opens into the dining room area (which opens into the kitchen) that has a large east facing slider, but there are trees there providing a fair amount of shade. I’ve painted the walls with Benjamin Moore OC-27 Balboa Mist with white trim. I do really like the look, but it’s kind of humdrum at the same time. Figuring what sort of color or accent wall to change it to is going to be a challenge.
Could you give recommendation for public restroom paint lrv level for canned light no natural light? Would Emerald Isle BM be ok to use as half wall accent and then Hawthorne yellow on all other walls? Or are there other similar colors in BM that might be better to consider based on only canned lighting?
i have two west facing rooms and one i painted with BM rain drop on roses which is beautiful with sun set coming in. The other one i painted with BM white dove and it looks so yellow and dingy. I need help to find a warm color that does not look yellow. I am wondering if BM oyster is going to look nice?
my house is very dark. my kitchen and family room are just one room in all. With this being said I really would like a splash of color and the only color that’s consistently on my mind is orange. I really would like gray floors but all my major furniture is brown so I think a brown floor will be better than gray. I’m a little lost and need suggestions…
I am still stuck with picking a color since we moved in in January. Country home. However master bedroom is in the basement. We have 2 small windows for lighting but it is just too dark and boring. We have lower ceiling in the basement and one wall is a brick wall w a fireplace. A huge space but I can’t settle on a color. A bright yellow keeps drawing me but just not sure. Any ideas would b appreciated.
Can I start with a huge MAHALO! You have become quite the daily conversation in my home these last few weeks. I am remodeling my entire home so painting is right around the corner. I have bought a few (SW & Benji) samples and learned that YOU WERE and ARE !00% RIGHT about “lighting”. It’s imperative to bring the colors home. The art of elimination began to happen with colors I thought I was going to love. Lighting and LRV matter. I live in Hawaii and picking colors for Island homes can be so up and down. I am going for cool, pastel colors with some neutrality. Hope I do good. Thanks to you I have prevented some major “Don’t do this”. Sending you a warm and cool Aloha! Thank you again.
I live in a 90 year old farmhouse (with a large 70s era addition,) which was originally my grandparents’ home. The living room and adjacent dining room faces east, with three medium sized windows, a front door and a red brick fireplace. The walls are badly in need of paint and minor repairs, but the oak floors are still good. I really love Aegean Teal. Is it light enough for rooms that are in shadow after 10 a.m.?
Hi James! Ty for your awesome articles concerning everything paint and design! I closed my house purchase just as the pandemic began. I am going to open up a wall to connect my livingroom with my front hall and kitchen. My 2 large windows plus a soon to be installed full glass front door are south-facing. The fully open main floor will have light from an east and a west window. My floors are warm, dark brown engineered hardwood with reddish/peachy undertones. In the kitchen, I have a floor to ceiling (8.5 ft) X 5 ft wide X 3.5 ft deep ‘chimney’ type structure clad in offwhite, taupe and greige-brown stone bricks that houses plumbing and my black wall oven. Do I need a light colour with brown and red undertones? The BM whites with red undertones are actually pink..which I don’t like. Any suggestions for this scenario?
I need some help my neighbors put up a privacy fence and then painted it this horrid orange color. At dusk the sun reflects off of that orange and through my back door turning my entire open concept downstairs….. pumpkin orange. Usually this is a pretty dark room, do you have any tips for how to handle this? we are going to put up curtains for this door but it’s not a fix all and we don’t want to keep them closed all of the time.
I really need help w our south facing rooms. Its the kitchen, dining and living rm w floor to ceiling windows. We want 1 color for this space. We currently have grey/brown flooring and the walls were painted agreeable grey 😬. Bc of all the light its very washed out and cold feeling. Wed love a beige or taupe color natural color but need it darker without an orange undertone:/ we have navy blue drapes and a taupe colored couch. This is ALOT 😂 sorry….i saw u said leave a comment at the end and ivebeen searching for months between bm and sw paints lol
Hi there, Thanks for posting this article as I am having this issue. Your articles are a wealth of information and I appreciate that. I finally narrowed it down to 3 colors, White Duck, Shoji White and Alabaster. Although I liked all 3, White Duck and Shoji White still made the walls look muddy or dingy. I have an open concept and ended up going with Alabaster in my kitchen and then darkening it 50% for the living room. It gave a warmer feel in the living room by darkening it. The color looks bright, open and airy but I never thought I would have white paint in my house. I am not sure that I am sold on white yet since I am so used to warmer, beige colors. I originally wanted to go with a greige but nothing worked as they were too dark and dingy in my house. Next, I have to paint the bedrooms and I am looking for a tan, NOT beige that leans gray. Do you have any suggestions? Thanks
Thanks for your article and great advices. I’m looking for BM analogue to SW Shoji White. Could you advise? Encycolorpedia says “Featherstone” but to me it have more red in undertones compared to Shoji White. Also I thought to try BM Portland Gray but lavender undertones somewhat bothers me. I guess I like Shoji White more. Btw nice website too.
I have a townhouse oriented east-west with the living room to the west and den/breakfast area facing east. There is the addition of a covered patio that leads into a carport. This makes the den so dark after about 10 am. The previous owner painted every room a sort of yellowish tan that I do like but I also want some variety. The trim is white as are doors. I’m looking at Swiss Coffee for the demand maybe even the living room. I will have to see how it looks. I would also love something that deals with early 1980s design elements that one just can’t afford to renovate at the moment. Lol. I did rip out the porch railing that was dividing the living room from the dining room (complete with turned wood columns) but there are a few other things that I am having to live with for a bit. What can we do with paint to disguise those architectural elements?
My house is built like a submarine. You can throw a baseball from the front entryway out the back door. From front to back, it goes giant living/dining area, kitchen, back “foyer” that leads outside. I have no idea what the hell to do with it. Edit: very little natural light, too. And there’s a stairwell up to 2nd floor about halfway down the left wall. Lol. It’s beyond my understanding. A article on this would be phenomenal
I LOVE your articles!! You are so knowledgeable and easy to listen to. I have been dealing with a north facing room that gets little sunlight and is paneled (triple whamy.) I see you suggested Mascarpone for northern exposure (which I love), but you suggest keeping the LRV at 80 or under for darker rooms. The LRV of Mascarpone is much higher than that. Can you touch on what to do if you have both dark AND northern exposure? And do the “rules” change if you are dealing with millwork such as paneling that is adjacent to rooms with wainscotting? Should that all just be treated as trim for flow? I would love for you to impart your wisdom on those of us dealing with multiple different issues at the same time.
Thanks for this article. I have gone back and forth on so many colors now 🤯🤯🤯 My daughter thinks I should go with agreeable gray throughout the main portion of the house (in eggshell) but can eggshell be used in the kitchen? I wish I could afford some simple advice from an interior decorator, but I cannot. I appreciate all your help in the articles.
In our dark, 1960’s semi-open floorplan, we chose a custom color which is close to BM Dark Linen without any black or grey. Haven’t found a note gif note color in BM. I’ve I suspected it may be close to SW Pearl Onion. The ceiling is BM Seahorse, which looks a little better in the S spaces, but plays well with our wall color everywhere. Both finishes are eggshell.
My kitchen and combined dining/living room area have ample windows on the S, W and N. But because of the LED patio string lights that adorn every structure across the road from my house I had dark reflective film applied to the windows. Unfortunately, dark reflective film does nothing to diminish the piercing white lights that burn 24/7. I will do not and will not have window treatments. The interior lighting bounces back from the reflective film depending on the degree of illumination and the height of the lighting. Have you consulted on paint colors for such a situation?