Color Transforms a Home Like Nothing Else

Color has the power to:

  • Warm up a space
  • Help buyers feel transported by creating a mood
  • Highlight architectural features
  • Minimize flaws
  • Change the perceived shape and size of rooms
  • Add curb appeal

Given its power, and relative price/value to other possible investments when staging your home to sell, it is important to have a few "tried and true" colors when facing the thousands of paint chips now available to us all.

As a service to all parties interested in using color to transform a home into a hot property, I thought I would begin a thread that highlights those "workhorse" paint colors that seem to work whenever you use them.  

If you have found a color worthy of repeated usage, we would like to know about it.  Below, I have listed some of my favorites from my staging, design and color consultation work to get this thread started: 

  • Warm creamy tan - Benjamin Moore HC-35 Powell Buff
  • Creamy white (great for all trim) - Benjamin Moore OC-95 Navajo White
  • Pale aqua blue (one client said she feels like she dove into an oasis) - Benjamin Moore HC-147 Woodlawn Blue
  • Warm light green - C2 Sisal
  • Medium khaki gray - Benjamin Moore HC-95 Sag Harbor Gray
  • Deep olive green (great accent color) - Benjamin Moore 2149-30 Fresh Olive
  • Warm bronze - C2 Kazoo

Home staging typically calls for warm neutrals, and this is true.  However, some shots of deeper and more dramatic colors, in small doses such as accent walls, can wake up a home and move buyers from really liking it to falling in love with it.

Ok.  Time to cast your vote!

Thank you.

Lisa Kauffman Tharp

www.BostonHomeStaging.com 

Boston Home StagingTM and the Boston Home Staging TM logo are trademarks of Austin Siena, LLC.   Copyright 2007, Austin Siena, LLC.  
All rights reserved.  Republication, duplication or dissemination of this content is expressly prohibited without written permission.  
For more information, please contact 978.897.4780.

 
This post has been included in Massachusetts Information

18 Comments on Best Paint Colors for Home Staging - Cast your votes!

SEP
15
2006
9 Featured Posts
Light and bright sells. I usually like to have clients paint three walls a light color with the forth wall a little darker
5:35am • #1
8 Featured Posts
Every interior wall & ceiling in my home is painted Benjamin Moore's 199-Barley. It's a warm honey color & it's gorgeous! It goes with everything!
5:47am • #2
1 Featured Post
Tans and greens look great- so much better than just plain white everywhere...
10:20am • #3
SEP
16
2006
117,961 Points 4 Featured Posts
Lisa, I agree that some situations call for a dark color. I staged a house with a 1980's kitchen, gray high gloss cabinets, black and white tiled floor laid in a checkerboard, mirrored backsplash... well you get the picture! 

Since I was stuck with the floors and backsplash, I decided to create a French bistro look. The cabinets got new hardware and were painted a warm tone like Castleton Mist (HC-1), Adams Gold (HC-18) or Richmond Gray (HC-96) and the walls a deep red like Mexicana (2172-30), Mars Red (2172-20) or Copper Clay (2172-10). A bistro table, bar stools and a blackboard completed the look. (all colors Benjamin Moore)

Lisa, I love all your picks which doesn't surprise me knowing you as I do.

In fact I've included all of them (except 2149-30 Fresh Olive which I should have), in the "Staging Diva Ultimate Color Guide, the easy way to pick colors for home staging projects," along with about 75 others and my 15 favorite color palettes to complete an entire home.

 

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva
President, Six Elements Inc.

 
2:25pm • #4
SEP
23
2006
110,135 Points 26 Featured Posts Localism Sponsor Outside Blog

We usually call white 'investor white' meaning it looks like an investor slapped some paint on it to make it look better lol.

Here in Northeast Ohio, I ferreted out the name of a color a lot of models seem to use, that mimics dining or living room colors Ive seen this past year on listing appointments.  Terra Cotta by Behr.  Warm and bright at the same time.

11:20pm • #5
DEC
21
2006
1 Featured Post

I like Benjamin Moore as well.  My favorites are Shaker Beige (HC-45) and Dry Sage (2142-40).  I also like to do focal walls, and paint high ceilings with a color other than white.

It is fun to hear about some of the other colors used.

 

Dawn of Home squad
4:17pm • #6
JAN
14
2007
135,515 Points 15 Featured Posts Outside Blog
Lisa - thanks for the great color suggestions.  I went to mark them in my Benjamin Moore fan thing and almost all of them were already marked;)  If it was not the exact same color than it was the one next to it.  I really think that there are colors that are great in almost every situation.  Thanks for the great Blog!
5:22pm • #7
JAN
30
2007
 Shaker beige is another one of my favorites. Great picks Dawn!
8:45am • #8
APR
26
2008
whitewhite it snow i like it got tobe great white let go lightess as sun yellow do u know why i pick white n yellow it me
1:11am • #9
MAY
27
2008

Hi I am tring to find a warm paint color for a # of rooms in my home. I like to go to lowes for the cost is less than the ones you have mention on the site. My kitchen is very small . Old original cabnets that my husband will not let me paint. They are brownish gold that I hate. But I am tring to get a warm color for the walls . My stove is cream and black as other items in the room. Its more like a kitchenette with a doorway going into the dining room for the dinning table and chairs. The house in over 100 years old and is the historic district. We have a lot of original in it that has to be refinished . I just need help with any colors that is warm that would work and with dark woodwork. Thank You For All help Wilma
Wilma Merrill
9:23pm • #10

Hi I am tring to find a warm paint color for a # of rooms in my home. I like to go to lowes for the cost is less than the ones you have mention on the site. My kitchen is very small . Old original cabnets that my husband will not let me paint. They are brownish gold that I hate. But I am tring to get a warm color for the walls . My stove is cream and black as other items in the room. Its more like a kitchenette with a doorway going into the dining room for the dinning table and chairs. The house in over 100 years old and is the historic district. We have a lot of original in it that has to be refinished . I just need help with any colors that is warm that would work and with dark woodwork. Thank You For All help Wilma    
Wilma Merrill
9:25pm • #11

Hi I am tring to find a warm paint color for a # of rooms in my home. I like to go to lowes for the cost is less than the ones you have mention on the site. My kitchen is very small . Old original cabnets that my husband will not let me paint. They are brownish gold that I hate. But I am tring to get a warm color for the walls . My stove is cream and black as other items in the room. Its more like a kitchenette with a doorway going into the dining room for the dinning table and chairs. The house in over 100 years old and is the historic district. We have a lot of original in it that has to be refinished . I just need help with any colors that is warm that would work and with dark woodwork. Thank You For All help Wilma
Wilma Merrill
9:25pm • #12

Hi I am tring to find a warm paint color for a # of rooms in my home. I like to go to lowes for the cost is less than the ones you have mention on the site. My kitchen is very small . Old original cabnets that my husband will not let me paint. They are brownish gold that I hate. But I am tring to get a warm color for the walls . My stove is cream and black as other items in the room. Its more like a kitchenette with a doorway going into the dining room for the dinning table and chairs. The house in over 100 years old and is the historic district. We have a lot of original in it that has to be refinished . I just need help with any colors that is warm that would work and with dark woodwork. Thank You For All help Wilma 
Wilma Merrill
9:26pm • #13

Hi I am tring to find a warm paint color for a # of rooms in my home. I like to go to lowes for the cost is less than the ones you have mention on the site. My kitchen is very small . Old original cabnets that my husband will not let me paint. They are brownish gold that I hate. But I am tring to get a warm color for the walls . My stove is cream and black as other items in the room. Its more like a kitchenette with a doorway going into the dining room for the dinning table and chairs. The house in over 100 years old and is the historic district. We have a lot of original in it that has to be refinished . I just need help with any colors that is warm that would work and with dark woodwork. Thank You For All help Wilma    
Wilma Merrill
9:26pm • #14
OCT
28
2008

Lighthouse Landing by Benjamin Moore is a warm, beautiful tan. It is a color that an acquaintance of mine used throughout her Maine coastal home. Her husband's son is an architect in California and his firm recommends it to their clients, many of whom are celebrities. The color looks amazing with navy and other blues, but also works with other colors. I just did my kitchen and connecting family room over and used Lighthouse Landing on the walls and Decorator's White for all the trim work. Really nice!
Gail
11:49am • #15
JAN
23

I highly recommend the paint deck "Colors That Sell" which you can purchase at www.PaintColorsThatSell.com!  It's a fan deck I've put together of the 27 absolute best paint colors for preparing a home for sale, proven to help sell homes in the over 100 homes I've staged.  Oversized chips make envisioning the color easy, 4-5 of the best shades/tints of each staging color such as beiges, sages, browns, yellows, reds and blues!  Picking paint colors couldn't be easier with this professionally selected fan, check it out at www.PaintColorsThatSell.com, you can order it there for just $25.
Tasha Moody
2:55pm • #16
JUL
31

I always like to go with the  most popular colors you can find them all here

Benjamin Moore

Sherwin williams

Ralph Lauren

and lots more are here so it should be easy for you to find the best selling your house colros

www.myperfectcolor.com

 

 

 
nowstarter
7:07am • #17
AUG
23

I am about to stage my house for selling.  It was built in the 60s, a Sunset award-winning design.  The living room has

a 20 foot wall of rough cedar horizontal planks.  Should I paint these?  Are they too sixties?  The other walls are a pale gold color...beautiful! 

 

Also, should the three smallish bedrooms strung down a hall all be the same color for harmony....or each a different color?

 

Thank you so much.
Bj Oregon
4:28pm • #18

Leave a response…

(optional)
What does the graphic say?
 
Rainmaker_large

Lisa Kauffman Tharp - BostonHomeStaging.com

Concord, MA

More about me…

Boston Home Staging

Address: Box 1083, Concord, MA, 01742

Office Phone: (978) 897-4780

Email Me



Links

Archives

RSS 2.0 Feed for this blog

Find MA real estate agents and Concord real estate on ActiveRain.