The psychology behind wall colors
Painting your walls is a great way to refresh your house's look or get rid of mold that started appearing. With time, layers of paint begin to crack and require a fresh layer of paint on top of them to look as seamless as before the cracks or the dirt started taking place on the walls. The go-to color people usually choose to paint their walls is typically white, or the same color that the walls were already painted.
People usually paint walls the same color they were painted before because they don't want to choose a color to match the furniture or get a different shade of paint for the walls.
They do this because they think they have to do more things before they can repaint a wall. Many people believe that choosing a color for your walls has no influence on the house's inhabitants and that this complicated process is not worth the effort, trouble, and expense. This article will debunk the myths associated with paint and colored walls in residential homes.
First off, let's begin by exploring the idea that you cannot simply repaint your walls with a different color and that there are many additional steps before you can do so. To repaint your walls, regardless of the color change, you need to make sure that the wall is clean, smooth, and covered with the same type of paint and make sure there are no holes in the wall before repainting.
To expand on that a little bit more, paint can be of different types, such as latex or oil, and mixing both changes the way they chemically attach to each other and react to each other, meaning that latex paint cannot be painted over oil paint, as it will either not stick or cause a change in color texture. In these instances, a primer is used to prepare the wall with an intermediary layer which will help the new paint stick to the wall with no problems (PPG, 2015).
As a side note, when deciding what kind of paint to use on your walls, keep in mind that latex paint is water-based, thinner, dries in 2 hours instead of a week for oil-based paint, and stains easily but doesn't crack or peel over time. It is also less toxic than oil-based paint, cheaper, more flexible, and less likely to chip.
Oil-based paint is not easily stainable, but it turns yellow and chips with time, is smoother and glossier, is harder to use and smelly, but has specific colors that are only achievable through oil compound chemicals. Given this information, you should know what shade of color you would like to use and the type of paint that would be better for your usage and your house's paint jobs (Diffen, 2020).
We've already talked about the "difficulties" of figuring out how new paint affects the wall-painting process and how the steps are the same no matter what color is chosen, even if it's the same color as what's already on the wall that needs to be repainted. Now we'll talk about how the colors on walls affect the mood of a room.
Psychologically speaking, colors have a strong impact on one's psychology and psyche, as can be observed by the manipulative methods of fast food chains which usually use the colors yellow, orange, and red, which invoque hunger.
We can start by segregating colors into two types: warm and cool colors. Warm colours consist of orange, yellow, and red, typically indicative of energizing and radiant colors that can portray strong emotions and happiness. At the same time, purple, blue, and green are cool colors that lower one's energy and give a more relaxed and calm mood to a room.
Going deeper into the psychological effects of colors and the specifics of each color, red makes people hungry and makes them want to talk. It can also be very intense, which has been shown to raise blood pressure, heart rate, and breathing because it gives people more energy.
This would be good in a living room or kitchen, where people need to be more active. Orange is said to be a younger sister of red, given that it provides all of the energy but less of the negative side effects that red painted walls tend to impose on people. Pink is shown to inspire calmness and minimize aggression. Yellow brightens the mood, except when it is too bright, which is when it can get overwhelming. Blue is the coolest of colors and promotes calmness and serenity, making for a great living room or bedroom color.
It is similar to blue, except that a deep blue often promotes sadness. In contrast, a deep purple can promote romantic atmospheres and induce creativity and inspiration, making for a great workshop color. Green is often associated with nature and is thought to help heal and relieve stress. This makes it a great color for a bedroom or a room with a view of nature because it blends in with the outside and brings the healing and stress-relieving effects of nature into one's own home.
White is the most common color for walls because it represents purity and cleanliness. This color was also used to make rooms look bigger than they are because it is not aggressive and reflects light well, which lets more light into a room. Black is often associated with nobility, elegance, and wisdom but is a very niche color as it absorbs most light and is often used to show off a darker, more reflective tone.
This study was done after putting together a bunch of articles about color psychology in general and room color psychology in particular.
This way, you'll be able to choose the best color for your walls and know a lot about paint types and colors and how they affect you in your home. The depths of the human psyche are still being explored and studied, and colors can have an even more significant impact than we think and know.
Therefore, choosing the appropriate color for you and making a well-studied decision is very important, which is why this study aims to be as specific and detailed as possible in regards to all of its specificities.
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