Color Your Mood: The Psychology of Color Theory in Your Whole Home Remodel

Everything in your whole home remodel has a color and every human being has a deep emotional response to color, conscious or subconscious. When you’re working with a professional designer, it’s important to understand the psychology of color theory as you make decisions about your home. Color theory is composed of practical guidance about color mixing and the visual effects of color combinations. While each individual will have a unique response to color, here are some of the emotions different hues typically inspire:

Red: Energy, passion, action, daring, ambition, determination. Red is a good color for a dining room to stimulate conversation and liveliness.

Orange: Heat, joy, social communication, optimism. Orange is best used as an accent color or in a room like a home office where you want to inspire creativity.

Yellow: Joy, intellect, optimism, cheerfulness, friendliness. There’s nothing like yellow to communicate happiness and welcome in any room. Yellow is the easiest color to get wrong; tone down the yellow you are attracted to by a couple of shades.

Blue: Peace, trust, tranquility, loyalty, confidence, integrity. Cool and calming, blue works well everywhere but particularly in bathrooms and bedrooms.

Green: Life, balance, growth, harmony, healing, safety. Like blue, green works in almost any room in your home, particularly in spaces where you want to promote a feeling of nurturing peacefulness.

Purple: Imagination, royalty, wisdom, creativity, magic. The favorite color of 75% of children, purple can be great for a kid’s bedroom or playroom. It also communicates drama and sophistication for any room in the home.

Pink: Romance, love, nurturing, sensitivity, compassion. Not just for little girl’s rooms, pink is a creative shade for any space where you want to elicit calm.

White: Freshness, purity, simplicity, light, cleanliness. White is used throughout homes to emphasize a sense of openness and clarity.

Black: Sophistication, mystery, power, formality. With careful consideration, black in small doses can be used in interesting ways, such as kitchen cabinets or appliances, on floors, or in high gloss shelving and other accessories.

When you work with a unified team of architects, designers, and construction professionals for your whole home remodel, choosing colors is one of the most exciting and rewarding aspects of the design build process. Blending personal preferences with the science of color theory and the expert guidance of a personal designer for your space helps you discover the hues that best express your style!