Fear of Color!

A common thing that I run into as a designer is that people are afraid of color or making a color choice for their walls! Nothing can change the look of your room for a better price than paint. I am a HUGE advocate of painted walls. We don't do plain walls in this household. My advice to everyone is Be Daring! I have never been afraid to paint a wall. Have I always liked the color afterwards... No. But do not judge a color while you are painting it on or even a day or two after. Give it time to sit. Go sit in the room and see how it makes you feel. I am HUGE on having a room make you feel good. Which brings me to the next point I want to talk about:

Please paint your walls a color that makes you feel the very best. So many people paint there walls what the trend is and afterwards they don't feel real great with their decision. For example- I love the look of the Blue and Brown trend we have recently seen. I think it is a very elegant look, but I could never have it in my house. For some reason, the color blue gives me a yucky feeling! I don't know why, it just does. My whole house is warm colors: reds, oranges, greens, golds, etc. I like the feeling of my room being a blanket for me, warm and cozy. You need to feel safe and comfortable in your own home and painting your walls the colors that you love is a great way to do that. A gallon of paint on average costs about $20 - $25. Some colors will take 2 gallons, but in my experience, you can do alot with just 1 gallon.

The picture above is of my old house. As you can see, I am not afraid of color. I absolutely love this color. I love it so much that I have painted my current house in the same color (pictures will come later). I get so many compliments in my house now of how it makes people feel and how it is so cozy and such a fun color. My husband was very afraid to have me paint the walls this color, but I convinced him to at least do these 2 walls. After he lived with it for a while, he loved it. He didn't want me to paint the back kitchen wall that color, so I did it while he was work one day :) He ended up loving it and wanted it done in our current house also. People are afraid at first and they pretty much always warm up to it and fall in love with color on the walls.
This picture is of my parent's cabin. We did a faux texture on this wall and it completely warms up the space. The rest of the walls are the pure white walls, this color just warms up the whole space and it doesn't feel like this large empty room. When they bought the cabin, every wall was white and it felt so cold and sparce in there, even though it was completely full of furniture.
Some people may be afraid of a really bold color, why not try a darker neutral color? This chocolatey color is so warm feeling and it doesn't make the room look dark at all, you just have to pair it with some lighter items in the room. My baby's nursery is a SUPER DARK brown and it doesn't make her room feel closed in at all because of what I have paired with it (those pictures will come very soon).
Now I hope the Berdan's don't mind me using their picture. They are selling (or did sale) their house and I took some pictures of it. I absolutely loved what they did in their bedroom. They did a 2 tone painted wall and I think it turned out fabulous. Another great example of using fairly neutral colors but creating a bold look.

Honestly and truly, painting your walls is the best way to add color to a room for the least amount of money. If you don't like it, you are only out about $25 and you can find a new color. Home Depot now offers some paint samples that you can purchase for a few dollars to paint a small section of your wall if you are concerned about how a color will look. Take the steps necessary for you, but please take the steps to creating a dynamic room with color and paint.