Paint color is crucial to perfecting the mood of a room

Oct 31, 2024

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Onton Team

Selecting a paint color for your space isn’t just about personal preference. The paint you choose for the living, dining, and sleeping spaces of your home has a direct impact on the perception and emotions felt when entering the space.

For instance, a pale blue makes your bedroom peaceful, while a soft green turns your living room into a sanctuary.

To understand which vibes go with which color, you need to understand basic color psychology.

Energetic and stimulating: Bright, warm colors like reds, oranges and yellows help to energize and stimulate conversation. This makes them ideal for social areas like kitchens and dining rooms.
Serene and relaxing: Cool colors and subdued warm colors like blues, greens, pastel yellows, creams and purples create calming environments that are suitable for private spaces such as bedrooms and home offices.
Balanced and calming: Neutral colors like whites, beiges and grays create a calming, balanced atmosphere and can be used to accentuate other design elements.

With these moods in mind, you can choose the ideal color for any room in your home with a quick assessment of the space. Decide how the room should serve you, what designs inspire you, and the mood you’re going for.

Focus on the function

Consider the main way this room serves you and what you do there. Establishing the role the room plays helps figure out what feelings you’d like to cultivate. For instance, you probably want a different vibe in a primary bathroom than in your entertaining spaces.

Bedrooms and bathrooms: Bedroom wall colors should bring you relaxation and encourage restful sleep. Muted colors such as pale blues and subtle yellows help inspire these feelings of peace. You can even extend these colors into your primary or guest bathrooms.
Kitchens and dining areas: For areas focused on food, select warm reds, oranges, and yellows to stimulate an appetite. If you’re big on entertaining, choose bolder colors to energize your guests and stimulate conversation. Or, use warm neutrals for a comforting dining experience.
Living and family rooms: Earthy tones such as warm browns and soft greens are a great way to create a soothing living area. These colors foster feelings of warmth and comfort, making an inviting sanctuary of relaxation.

Find your inspiration

With your desired mood in mind, you’re ready to look at specific shades. To avoid getting overwhelmed by thousands of paint swatches and millions of social media posts filled with inspiration, take a step back and consider your design inspiration.

The color palette in every room should be cohesive, whether they’re shades from the same color family, complementary colors, or all in the same tone, cohesion prevents spaces from feeling cluttered and disjointed. Use the color wheel to consider whether you want to go the monochromatic route for a calm, harmonious feel or contrasting colors for a bold, energizing approach.

For example, if your room centers on a statement piece use that to guide your color palette. To keep your bright red couch the focus of the room, choose contrasting colors, such as white walls with a few pops of red as accents.

Be sure to select paints with the same finishes to enhance this cohesion. Glossy finishes go well with modern design, while matte finishes work better with more traditional decor.

Try out all kinds of lighting and swatches

If you’ve ever found the perfect color in the store only to get home with paint that looks completely different, you understand the importance of lighting. To avoid the struggle entirely, test drive the colors in your space:

Make some swatches: Swatch some paint samples of the colors you’re leaning toward, but don’t paint directly on the wall. Your previous paint color will make it difficult to get a good perception of the new color. Instead, buy a few sheets of inexpensive poster board and paint large swatches that you can easily move around the room.
View during different times of day: The color might not look the same in direct sunlight as it does once the sun is setting or even late at night. So be sure you like your choice at all hours of the day.
Consider your lighting: The lighting in the store and your living room are going to be very different. Check out the paint under your bulbs. Or, if you really want to keep the paint you’ve selected, consider changing your lighting scheme.

Assess the size and flow of the space

The size and feng shui of the room are big considerations when choosing a color. Colors change the appearance of a space, making it look smaller or larger.

Lighter colors create the illusion of a larger room, making it feel much more open.
Darker colors can make a room appear smaller, but color drenching can avoid a closed-off feeling and create a cozy space.
Contrasting colors help draw the eye toward certain objects or walls in the room.

Then use the 60-30-10 rule to create balance. (If you’ve used the 60/40 rule for furniture layout, it’s a similar concept.) When following this method, you'll start by determining the dominant color.

For example, with a sage green couch, you could consider a muted green as your dominant color. The 30% will be your secondary color, such as yellow accent walls, chairs, etc. Finally, the 10% comes in accents, like pink or red wall art.

Simplify the whole process with Onton

Curating your perfect space is easier said than done. Without the full design right in front of you, your existing paint colors may muddy your view of the room and prevent your vision from materializing. So skip the stress and let Onton bring your dream home into real life! Find inspiration and see the colors in your space in seconds.

Discover: To inspire

Find endless inspiration for your next project. Click images to quickly find furniture and decor, or scroll to find your paint inspiration.

Imagine: To visualize

Using Imagine, prompt Onton’s AI (the more descriptive the better!) to get you a perfect visualization of your space in seconds. For example, select “Bedroom” and “Vintage,” type in, “Yellow room with beige accents and green lamps,” and you’ll generate something like this:

Pro-Tip: Include negative prompts to avoid features you don’t want to include, such as colors, features, or design styles.

Edit: To customize inspiration

Once you’ve generated your inspiration, you might want to go back and make some changes. No problem! Just select edit and easily change your prompt, or describe items you’d like to add to the room.

Search: To find pieces

Search Onton is a great way to find the perfect piece to match your fresh coat of paint. Onton’s search engine puts you first. So you’ll always get the best results possible — with no ads.

Concierge: To get personalized AI advice

Having trouble with your creative process? Just message Onton’s Concierge. Our personalized AI chatbot can guide your design journey or lead you directly to the pieces you’re looking for.