Room Colors and Their Effect on Your Mood

ECOS 10/07/2015
Room Colors and Their Effect on Your Mood

Most people tend to focus on how repainting their home will visually affect their lives. Naturally, this is the obvious thing to take into account, but since we are talking about your place of residence it’s worthwhile to dig a bit deeper.

The psychology of color is common knowledge for visual artists, but even if you merely want to repaint your kitchen, you need to take this topic into consideration. If applying a certain color to a painting can add certain emotions or moods to it, imagine what a whole wall or a couple of them can do to affect the mental state of everyone in the room. Even though you may know the techniques for quick painting, we are going to go through both warm and cool colors, and focus on how they impact our mood.

Yellow

yelllow

If you want to add energy to a room then yellow is probably your best bet. If you pay attention to inspiring and joyful videos, you will notice that they all have a yellowish hue. This color is associated with joy, sunshine, laughter and people have a really positive reaction to it. Still, it reflects light quite aggressively, which means that painting a large part of the room that receives quite a bit of natural light yellow might hurt people’s eyes.

red

Red is dualistic in nature. It is both the color of love and of aggression, passion and anger, blood and wine. If you want to raise a person’s alertness and heart rate, red will do the trick. Still, as far as painting a room red goes, we recommend it be taken up with caution. Red is a color more commonly used to accent a particular piece of furniture or part of the decoration. If you cover your entire room red it can provoke a feeling of unease and restlessness.

Orange

orange

Orange stands midway between Yellow and Red, being that it is highly energetic, but without an aggressive edge to it. Due to the fact that it can provoke feelings of happiness and stimulate mental activity, it works well for living rooms, studies, offices and so on. It is often used for children’s rooms because kids tend to respond to it very well.

Green

green

The first of the cool color tones, green is usually associated with money, but we are not going to focus on that. Before green was turned into an association for financial stability it stood for growth and safety, as it provokes feelings of relaxation. It is also a color of nature, so, if you want to create a soothing environment, then adding green to the mix is a good idea.

Blue

blue

It is no wonder that blue is many people’s favorite color. It is used to create a spiritual environment and evokes a sense of calm. It symbolizes loyalty, trust, the truth and heaven in western cultures. This color has been known to slow down the metabolism and help calm people down. We suggest that you avoid using it in your kitchen, since it can suppress your appetite.

Purple

purple

Purple has long been used to represent royalty and there is even a saying that dates all the way back to Constantinople and emperor Justinian: “Purple is the noblest shroud”. But let’s go back to our room. Purple combines the feeling of safety provided by the color blue and the energy provided by the color red. It is a color rarely seen in nature and is the favorite color of 75% of pre-adolescent kids. It inspires creativity and can really give a room a modern look.

Final notes

It is always a good idea to use these colors in combination with neutral colors (black, white, grey, brown) to balance them out, since they can be overly aggressive on their own. You should also keep in mind that subjective taste comes into play when it comes to color. Depending on personal preference, the moods evoked by the above-mentioned colors will vary slightly depending on the person. Make sure that the colors work with the rest of your room arrangement, and keep these general guidelines in mind when planning your repainting project.

Kurt Jacobson is a snowboarding enthusiast with a background in real estate. Having moved 11 times in the past nine years, he thrives on helping others learn from his experiences. When he’s not out shredding the mountain, he writes about all things home related for the website HouseHunter.co.

CATEGORIES color theory

COMMENTS

LEAVE A COMMENT ON THIS POST