The best paint colours to stage your home
Giving your home a fresh coat of paint is one of the most effective, easiest and most efficient ways to update your home. It returns a positive ROI (Return on Investment) and generally helps houses sell faster and at higher values.
When it comes to selling your house, you want to choose colors that will appeal to the broadest range of buyers – the ones that are neutral, light, inviting and show your space well. Ironically, these colors are fairly consistent with the most popular shades of paint that most homeowners will choose for themselves when they are planning to stay in their homes.
You don’t want your paint colours to steal the show. The whole purpose of paint is to allow your home’s selling features to take the stage.
I’ve been in the interior decorating business for 12 years and a stager for just as long. I can not emphasize enough how much better a home shows in photos and in person when the walls have been neutralized. With that being said, I have often heard from home sellers why would I go through the time, effort and expense to repaint my entire home when the buyer is probably going to come in and repaint anyways. My response has always been why are you concerning yourself with what a buyer may or may not do once the house is theirs? The whole idea is you are trying to sell your home and in doing that you need to attract potential buyers and it has been proven that painting your home is the best ROI a home seller can do when wanting to sell.
So what type of paint shades should I choose?
As a general rule, when you’re preparing your house for sale, you want colors that are neutral, light and inviting. You want to appeal to the majority of home buyers, and you want to avoid colors that are dark or taste specific. If you have bright reds, pinks, blues or yellows on the walls in your kids’ rooms, you are better off neutralizing those walls to appeal to more buyers. The same goes for dramatic accent walls, paint them.
Many people interpret neutral as boring. This is not the case. Choosing the right neutral to correspond with your flooring, kitchen cabinets and other features can create quite a space with personality and be inviting to potential buyers. You want to choose a colour that makes it feel like home.
What do I mean when I say neutral?
Neutral doesn’t necessarily mean beige. Beige can be boring. While grey is trending right now, it can be a tough colour to get right due to its many undertones- blue, beige, green and taupe undertones. Grey necessarily won’t work in all spaces especially spaces with a lot of dark brown woods or yellow toned oak. In this case you are safer to side with greige (beige + grey). Greige can work in most homes.
My go to greige colors are:
Revere Pewter works great with existing wood trim and wood cabinets.
This kitchen and bathroom has Pale Oak walls.
My go to grey colours are:
Aside from grays and greiges, certain light or pale blues/greens work well, especially in bedrooms, some kitchens and bathrooms. Blue/green is another cool color, and all 3 of these color families work especially well with dark hardwood floors, white cabinets and white base molding.
My go to soft blue/greens are:
Colours you want to AVOID when staging and selling a home
Dark colors (e.g. black, navy, dark brown, dark blues/purples/greens – they make your space look smaller and more closed in
Taste specific colors or colors that evoke specific reactions (e.g. reds, burgundy’s
Bright and saturated colors (e.g. orange, bright yellow, bright green, etc.)
Gender specific colors (e.g. pinks, lavenders).
Warm colors, especially yellows and colors with orange undertones.
Many different colours that can make a house look smaller and creates more clutter)
off whites or creamy whites as they can come off as dirty looking in certain spaces. Typically the tone of white is used in rental apartments
One colour vs Multiple
I recommend one colour for the main living areas. The more consistent you are with color, the larger and more cohesive your home will look. It will also save you a bit of money on the paint. I would use a secondary colour in areas like bathrooms and laundry rooms. Keeping bedrooms neutral, light and inviting and keeping in the same colour family as the rest of the home. Stay away from gender specific colours in the bedrooms as you do not know what the buyers needs will be.
Avoid too many colors…this can create color clutter and distract the eye.
This will also help the buyer focus on the home, rather than be distracted by the paint colours. This is especially important for open concept floor plans.
