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This way, any cool light will be offset by the warmer tones, and warmer lighting won’t completely wash out the color. Test several at once to see which one works best with the other colors at play in the room. To be honest, a vibrant red color on the exterior side of the house will for sure ramp up the vitality. With a hint of bold brick red color against the drizzly Seattle skies. You’ll be getting a house that has been a dream for a lot of people. Like in nature, where bright, garish colors warn animals to stay away, a flawed color palette in a home warns buyers to keep a wide berth.
But we’ve found that many times, trendy paint colors tend to not look right in an older home. This isn’t to say you can’t use modern, fresh versions of historically accurate colors…we’ve just seen trendy colors go wrong enough times to caution against them. Ranch houses have the amazing quality of looking good and are painted in many hues. Ranch homes built in the 1950s and 1960s had striking highlights like bright red and accessories painted in various vibrant colors. You can choose your home’s colors from a large selection of expert siding and trim choices. Choose off-white or pastel hues for painting columns, window trim, and shutters on a modest ranch made of red brick to draw attention to architectural details without their diminutive size.
Cove Light Ideas (Types & Ceiling Lighting Designs)
Either you will end up painting the house too bland or clownishly over the top, or it’ll become an envy for the neighborhood you live in. This cozy Costa Mesa, CA home from K Shan Design is painted in two shades of blue that make the facade and front porch feel homey and inviting. A tonal palette of dark and silvery grays and an orange-red door gives this lakeside home a cozy feel that harmonizes with the slate roof and gray shingle siding. This Berkshires home designed by Crisp Architects is washed in a barely there blue-gray-violet hue that subs in for classic white, adding a bit of nuance to the facade.
To make your kitchen pop with color, paint your kitchen island navy blue or gray. An accent-colored island gives your kitchen a trendy look without a huge commitment. In the grand scheme of things, an island is much easier to repaint than cabinets. While you may love your magenta exterior paint and purple accents, no one wants to buy the bruise-colored house in the neighborhood.
What Buyers Want in a Home: Top Must-Haves in 2023
Contact us today for a free painting quote for your historic home. In fact, many of the historic homes we paint have a darker red on the trim. While we are seeing a resurgence of this light green in the last few years, mint is actually a color that was used often around the turn of the 20th century. It also saw a return in the 50’s and 60’s as a staple color in Midcentury modern design, so it is a great color for both stately Victorians and streamlined ranches.
Porch ceilings have been painted blue for as long as anyone can remember; bringing the trend indoors is a modern take on an old trick. A pastel hue such as this works as well in a brand new home as it does in a centuries-old farmhouse, because colors inspired by nature have a timeless appeal. To add interest to a big, dull ranch, you could also paint part of the bricks a contrasting color while leaving certain bricks alone. You might also employ vividly colored or black shutters in contemporary designs to bolster the outside appearance, or you could paint the non-brick components of the house the same color as the bricks.
Paint Colors That Blend Beautifully With Natural Wood Trim
It has a lovely creamy softness to it, and works really well in north facing rooms where white paint can look dull and flat. If gray is less your style and you want a warmer neutral, Classic Gray is an excellent choice. It’s considerably warmer than the other colors mentioned above, but still has just enough gray to stop it being too warm.
Beige and gray paint colors have been all the rage for go-to interior colors since the 1990’s. Your grandparents and grandparents’ grandparents were looking to brighten up their dark interiors before electricity was invented, and beige and gray just don’t have that power. Brighter, bolder colors do, and that’s why historic homes were more often painted in vivid hues, including blues, greens, yellows, ochres, and reds.
Best paint colors for selling a house by room (interior)
The color of your home will vary according to the time of day and the quality of the light. A soft shade of pistachio green on this Litchfield County, CT home from Crisp Architects has a taupe-y appearance as night falls that sets it apart from the dark greens of the surrounding landscape. Jessie Tobias Design painted this waterfront house in a deep blue shade that echoes the lake and is carried through to the deck chairs on the weathered wood dock. Red paint colors can have an earthy feel and represent strength, power and energy. Colors borrowed from nature make sense for showing off unpainted wood.
Open up your living room by selecting furniture that’s trim, not bulky. Consider a love seat in place of a full-size sofa, along with glass-topped tables. A Louis XVI ghost arm-or-side-chair offers comfortable seating and see-through acrylic construction. Lamps with crystal bases and shades to match the wall color also open up a small living room. Visit our ranch home remodel guide for more tips and ideas on how to modernize the exterior and interior design of your ranch style home.
Plus, many companies will have worked on historic homes in the past and will have knowledge about the best paint colors to use and the right paint techniques for your older home. This kitchen’s cool grays recall mid-century chrome, but warmer shades work too. These neutral off-white and greige tones bring welcome balance to a daring wall color. In a room where orange-tinged woods are the standout detail—in furniture, flooring, or casings—choose colors that enhance those existing hues. “One option is to balance warm wood tones with cool colors like blue or slate gray,” says Sue Wadden, director of color marketing at Sherwin-Williams.
Repose Gray lightened by 50% with SW Pure White wainscoting.I am beyond obsessed with how light and bright it makes every room feel. It’s the perfect neutral backdrop with just enough warmth that no room ever feels cold. This is my all-time favorite paint color because it just works everywhere! My entire main floor was originally painted Repose Gray, and I’ve since repainted and had the color lightened by 50%. Room exposure can have a dramatic impact on bringing a paint color’s undertones to the fore.
This classic soft yellow house from Charles Almonte Architecture / Interior Design has white trim and a factory finish black roof and door. A stained Ipe hardwood staircase with a reddish tint adds contrast. Like navy, light blue looks lovely against just about any color of trim.

We help homeowners choose the perfect paint colors, and the care we take in painting historic homes has given us opportunities to deliver unbeatable workmanship. It can easily fade into the background to provide the perfect backdrop for antique furniture, or it can be a showstopping color, depending on the natural light, the trim and the room itself. Don’t go too “blue” with navy, however, or you’ll very quickly have a room that feels unintentionally nautical.
Purple + Red
For a more traditional take on this look, dial down the wall color with an earthier shade of red. Color trends may come and go, but some paint palettes just seem to have staying power—perhaps because they’re rooted in the past. Interior paint schemes grounded in period architecture can look as fresh now as they did in their heyday, especially when given a bit of a twist. Some older ranch homes have a monotonous, sleepy appearance because they seem to stretch on forever. Use paint to separate the various parts of the house to break up the line. A white garage door color will go well with the pastel color of the wall if you intend to utilize your garage more frequently.
A room containing wainscot provides a good opportunity for a contrast between light and dark. A dark wainscot below a bright wall will draw attention to the upper walls, while a bright white wainscot next to a colored wall will focus the eye on the wainscot. Today, however, finishes are also being used to create visual effects on the entire wall. Paint one wall in a flat or satin finish and the adjacent wall in a semi-gloss, both in the same color, and “when the light hits the walls, it creates a corduroy or velvet effect,” says Doty Horn. Similarly, you can paint the walls flat and the ceiling semi-gloss to achieve a matte and sheen contrast.
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