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You’ve probably heard that color and light can affect your mood. There have been countless studies on what color is best in the classroom for learning, and what color works in a doctor’s office lobby to calm patients. Here are some tips on how you can use paint colors in your home to help set the mood for every room, as well as what to avoid.

Home is where the heart is, and the heart of most homes is the kitchen. Getting the color right in this room is important. Bright, sunny yellows and apple green are go-to colors for creating a feeling of happiness and togetherness. According to HGTV, these are two of the top kitchen colors, along with gray and lighter shades of blue. If you want to include dark blues, incorporate them as accent colors. One color to avoid in the kitchen? Red, as it’s known to stimulate hunger and could lead to overeating.

Welcoming colors work well in living rooms, game rooms and foyers, as this is where most guests will spend their time in your home. Warm colors, like brown and yellow, are not only soft and inviting, but they are also quite neutral and will coordinate nicely with the colors in other rooms.

The best bedroom colors are calming and sleep-stimulating. Neutral grays and colors in the blue family, like ocean blue or navy help to put you in that bedtime mood and also look great with creamy white bedding. One word of caution – don’t go too overboard with dark colors here, as you don’t want to have a room that feels dark and dingy. Add artwork and accents to lighten up very dark walls.

It can be tempting to put bright colors in your kid’s bedroom, but beware as they can be over-stimulating and actually prevent sleep – and what parent wants to do that?! Dabble with primary colors (red, blue, yellow) in their brightest shades in the playroom, but when it comes to bedrooms, the same guidelines apply. If you’re in love with the idea of purple in your baby girl’s nursery, opt for the lighter, softer shades on the walls. Fire engine red in your son’s room – not the best idea for a paint color, but it can be good as an accent. On the walls, go for orange instead, as it’s known for promoting confidence and independence while putting children at ease.

There are more components to painting a room than just the walls. To complete the look and have everything looking shiny and new, start with the ceiling and finish with the trim. Here are some keys to painting your ceiling right the first time as well as some new ideas in ceiling design to keep you on-trend.

To start, prep the surface just as you would the walls. Repair any cracks or holes first, and choose the appropriate paint application tools. Some people prefer using rollers attached to extender handles. Others prefer the spray method. Be sure to wear protective gear when spraying to prevent inhaling the paint particles.

Paint sheen and color are just as important on the ceiling as they are the walls and trim. Usually, ceilings are done in a flat sheen and it’s easy to choose a color because most brands of paint make one called “ceiling white.”

If you want to think outside the box, try going with a color on the ceiling. Trending ideas are to paint the entire ceiling in a shade of blue. Ethereal blue like Opal Essence by Benjamin Moore is a soft touch of blue-green. A beautiful sky blue will bring the open feeling of the outdoors inside.

Consider using a metallic color on the ceiling. With rosy pink still a hot décor color, a golden ceiling in the bedroom coordinates nicely. Rose gold on the ceiling in the bathroom packs a punch when paired with faucets and fixtures of the same. Metallics work great on the dining room ceiling, too.

Use your home’s architecture to your advantage. Paint a tray ceiling in rich, deep color and coat the trim in a bright white. Use molding on the ceiling to create a geometric pattern with this color scheme as well for some drama.

Tired of gray? Even with more than 50 shades available, gray might not be the best neutral for your home. While it has been popular for close to a decade now, a shift back to beige is just beginning to take place. So, how do you determine which neutral is right for your home?

First, take a look around. Start in your entryway and walk through your house following the natural flow from front to back through the living room and ending in the kitchen. This is typically where your neutral color will go. If you have a two-story foyer or living room, go up the stairs and take note of the colors you pass along the way, like the banisters, for example. What color are your kitchen cabinets and countertops? Do you have white, chrome or black appliances? All of these will come into consideration when choosing your neutral color.

Next, take a look at your furniture and accessories. Do you have a lot of natural wood? What is a prominent color theme in your home? If you have lots of blue and gray and green, then you probably want to pick a cool neutral with blue or green undertones in the gray family. If reds and yellows dominate, then a warm neutral, like beige, is likely best.

You can determine the undertone color by looking at the color wheel or strip. Pick the lightest color you think you’ll want for your walls. Then, look at the darkest color on that same strip, which is where you’ll more easily see the undertone color. By making sure your undertone goes with what you want, the chances of being happy with your paint color greatly improve!

Flooring is another consideration when choosing wall color. If your tile or carpeting is beige, beige is what you should put on your walls. Same goes for gray. If you’ve got white or off-white, then you can choose either. 

Greige is a color that gives you the best of both worlds by blending gray and beige together. Some of the most popular greige colors, according to The Spruce, are Benjamin Moore “Revere Pewter,” “Edgecomb Gray,” and “Gray Mist,” Behr “Silver Drop” and Glidden “Stonehenge Greige.”

When is the best time of year to paint your home’s exterior? In the north Houston region, that time is coming up pretty soon. Autumn is typically a great season for exterior paint because of the cooler temperatures, but also important is the lower humidity.

When you’re painting the interior of your home, you can easily control the conditions by adjusting your thermostat to get the best possible environment for the paint to cure (dry). But, when it comes to painting outdoors, unfortunately, you have no control over the weather.

Paint should only be applied to a clean, dry surface. Otherwise, you’ll have problems like streaking, peeling, or even mold growth beneath the paint’s surface. If it has recently rained, wait a full day before applying paint outside and be sure to check each area is totally dry before you begin.

The chances of an unexpected afternoon thunderstorm are dwindling as we move later into September and October. Decreased heat and humidity make the outdoors not only more tolerable for the painter, but for the paint as well. And lower humidity will mean drier surfaces.

Painting under hot, direct sunlight could cause the paint to dry too quickly – it can dry during application and not adhere properly. Most paint products recommend application in temperatures below 85-90 degrees. Conversely, painting when it is very cold, say, less than 45 degrees, will also alter the drying speed, giving you less-than-optimal results.

These guidelines apply to most exterior surfaces, such as siding, brick, stucco, and wood. If you only need to paint decorative shutters, for example, you could remove them and bring them indoors for painting where you can control the temperature.

The experts at Spear Paint are ready to paint your home’s exterior. We want you to love where you live and are here to help you achieve this goal. Call us today at 713-664-5150 so that we can get started on your project.

Is your kitchen feeling a bit dated? Maybe you’ve replaced some fixtures or installed new appliances but the look just isn’t complete? Here’s how to add paint to get the right ingredients in your kitchen’s décor so they’ll blend into the perfect atmosphere.

Painted cabinets aren’t new, but they are a great way to give your home’s main room a fresh, new look. Choose a color by picking out a prominent fleck in your terrazzo floor or countertop. Got granite? Grab a tone from the middle between the darkest and lightest colors. What about marble? Match up with a strong vein color and go a step or two lighter to make the marble pop. The key to painting two-toned cabinets is to go lighter on the top and darker on the lower cabinets. This helps lift the eye and make your kitchen seem brighter. Using different shades of the same color or picking from the middle and top of a color card yields great results.

White kitchens never really go out of style. White gives off that fresh, clean feel in any room. In the kitchen, white helps brighten up the area so you can read that recipe or homework problem. Use one of the currently-popular neutrals, like soft gray or greige (gray/beige) on kitchen walls along with bright white cabinets and a soft white backsplash. Make your breakfast nook stand out by painting an accent wall or two just in this corner in a bold, contrasting color like navy or dark peach (which goes great with copper fixtures, by the way).

Terracotta is a neutral southwestern color that many in our area use for outdoor decorating. Why not bring this soft color into the kitchen? It’s the perfect orange – not too bright, not too dull – and goes great with the long-popular gray. You can use terracotta paint on an accent wall or your island and cabinets. To add to the fun, pick up some cute potted cacti in terracotta planters for the window sill.