The Power of Color in Your Home

How color can change the way you feel.

Welcome to June…a time when the colors have fully returned outdoors and Connecticut is alive once again!

Clients often struggle with which colors they want to incorporate into their spaces, or whether they want the absence of color by using whites and neutrals.  When I work with them, we focus on the function, feel, vibe and overall style of a space, with the “feeling” being one of the most important.

In this month’s newsletter, I will explore how to use colors within your home to ensure you “feel” the way you want to in your home sanctuary.

If white-on-white kitchens make you feel like taking a deep breath of air or if you’ve felt the serenity of light blues and grays, you’ve experienced the overwhelming power that color has on your emotional and physiological states.

In fact, it isn’t merely the color itself that our brains interpret as mood-invoking, but also the shade, pattern, and depth of that color. (e.g. A bright red alerts us to danger and puts us on edge, while a deep burgundy can make us feel warm, passionate, and elegant. Additionally, small and repetitive patterns can make us feel regimented, while large, flowing patterns bring out our artistic sides.)

While you might laugh at this idea, it is true! If your living room is a drab beige and you often find yourself listless or unhappy when in that room, you are experiencing the connection between room color and your mood.

For the room above, the client told me when the project was finished that he “never realized how depressed the yellow wood made him feel until they changed it to the new zen color it is now”.

Color is complicated and complex. Certain colors can multiply or muffle light and can even appear as various shades of that color throughout the day, depending on how much sunlight that room receives and its proximity to other colors.

Do You Crave a Fresh Start? 

Have you considered how the physical walls around you and the colors therein are impacting your life and wellness? Are they enhancing the positive qualities of your life such as thankfulness, love, abundance? Or are they muting your individual passions?

We find the latter to be true nearly every time you buy a new home (and, in essence, take on the mood / color palette of the previous owner). Not all vibes are worth sharing, and that’s why fabric, furniture, and paint colors must be matched to your current chapter in life.

• If your walls and ceilings have been their current color for more than a decade…
• If your window treatments and furniture have boasted the same palette since you moved in…
• If your carpeting makes you cringe (and you’re unsure of its original color)…