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Is your listing suffering from the neutral blahs? It’s good to go neutral when selling a home so that you offer up potential buyers a blank canvas to imagine their own decorating, but too neutral can also make your listing look dull and forgettable.
Using pops of color throughout the home’s interior can add more visual interest to rooms and even be used to enhance architectural details or create focal points that you want to make sure home buyers don’t miss.
Here are some ideas:
Want to be trendy? Reach for the blues -- deep and dark blues are a popular color nowadays to decorate home interiors. But you likely won’t want to go overboard with such a dark tone. “There are lots of blues coming in to interiors that coordinate with turquoise and aqua blues,” says color expert Erika Woelfel, director of color marketing for Behr. “Really deep and dark tone blues like sapphire, iris blue, and navy blue are popular.”
Try coordinating the trendy blues with yellow or lime green -- “a great contrasting color can be a nice enhancement with a dark blue,” Woelfel says. If you don't want to paint an entire room a deep blue color, use it as a color for an accent or feature wall. “Paired with white furniture, blue walls can really pop and create a nice, relaxed atmosphere,” Woelfel says.
Color block: Color blocking has become a popular fashion trend, and you can also use the idea to dress up your interiors. For more modern spaces, you could use color and geometry to give a neutral backdrop more visual interest. For example, the photo to the left shows an example of how color blocking is used to dress up a modern kitchen with neutral gray walls. In this example, the cabinets were painted blue and then colors of dark plum were added to create depth in the space as well as a light cognac brown to soften up the hues.
Create a focal point: This is where accent or feature walls -- painting one wall in a room a few shades darker or a more bold color -- can really do the trick in leading buyers’ eyes to a place you don’t want them to miss. Feature walls can help you create a focal point in a room, such as in highlighting a fireplace or directing buyers to a hallway. Have some fun with your accent color: You could pick a trendy color here because it’s easy enough for someone to change and it won’t distract from the overall neutral tones of the home.
Accessorize: You don’t have to commit to paint to add color punches. For example, in an all-white kitchen, add color pops through the accessories, like a red or orange colored small appliance, or a bowl of red apples or lemons. For a neutral living room, use color pops through the throw pillows, blankets, or the artwork to weave in color and more visual interest.
Make more room: Reach for a darker tone to make a space feel roomier. Blues and greens may be a good choice, but you’ll need good lighting if you’ll be using darker tones.
For example, used with good lighting, “blue actually can make a space feel larger,” Woelfel says. “Blue is a recessive color. It can fade away in your field of vision. It’s a cool tone that can be used to push out a room and to create a feeling of space, but you have to have good lighting.”
On the other hand, warmer colors -- like reds, oranges, and yellows -- are a color that move toward you in your vision. “They can make your walls feel closer, but it also can depend on the tone,” she notes.
