Many a home owner has come up with a plan to attack the much maligned walls of a too dark room.  All too often people fall into the trap of thinking that a fresh coat of paint will be their knight in shining armour. Paint is indeed good...very good actually, but it can’t work miracles. Lightening and brightening your space are essentially two different elements of your space.  

Here’s what everyone needs to know if you’ve got a room that looks and feels like a cave and you plan on doing something about it to please potential buyers.

What Light Wall Paint Can and Can’t Do

Freshly painted walls and the for sale property have enjoyed a strong and loving relationship over a great many years, but you just have to know that no paint colour can truly brighten a dark room in your for sale property. If there is a colour that comes near being able to do that, it’s yellow.  Good ‘ol yellow can reflect light like no other paint colour can. But here’s the kicker; your room has to have a light source to reflect.

And this same rule is true of every paint colour at your local paint store. A light paint colour alone can’t save a dark room from itself.

The upside is that a new coat of light paint in a dark room will likely have a big effect on how buyers feel about the room since many see lighter paint colours as fresh and quite modern, whilst being less bossy than darker shades. Lighter colours are kind of like the introverts of the colour world. And another thing; buyers may also perceive the room as being a bit more open since light colours move away from the eye and dark colours come closer.

Address the lighting too

Just like dark paint colours by themselves don’t make a room darker, light paint colours can’t make a room brighter. If you have a room that feels dark and sombre, then by all means go for a light coloured paint to lighten the mood, but you will have to add more lighting to have any real effect on brightness. Natural light is great, but in the absence of it, then artificial is the way to go. Of course the bigger the room, the more lighting you will need. Even small rooms can benefit from at least one extra lamp, as well as the ceiling fixture.

Take a look at the room pictured above. This room doesn’t use light coloured paint or seem to have an abundance of natural light. Yet the space doesn’t feel like a dark cave. The wall colours effect the mood (warm & cosy) and the lights control the room’s overall brightness.

Now, let’s re-imagine this room is painted using much lighter versions of the existing colours. Once you’ve done that, mentally switch off all the lights, including the accent lights you see in the wall unit.

This new room you have in your imagination now should have much lighter wall paint, but no lighting. Can you see if this room becomes lighter or darker after the imaginary changes?

If you’ve got this one right, you’ll have ‘seen’ that the room still gets dark despite light coloured walls, once you switch the lights off. Can you see now how light paint by itself can’t make a room like this feel brighter? It relies on the artificial lighting used to great effect here to truly light the way.

Never froget that... 

A light wall colour can’t shine in a dark room.  Light paint can look great in a dark room but it won’t do much for you if you don’t address the light sources. Just take a look at the room pictured and you’ll see the space isn’t overly large, but the number of lights on the room make this room sensationally useable.  

If you want your space to fill potential buyers with happiness from the moment they walk in the room contact me via email on donna@roomremedy.com.au or if you live between Sydney and Newcastle call me on 02 4356 1356 for a colour consultation with me and my interactive colour wheel.

Image Credit