How to Use Color Psychology in Your Home

We use a host of techniques to bring comfort and beauty to our homes: lighting, feng shui, texture, furnishings and accessories. But one thing that can overdetermine how you feel in and experience your living space is color. Color can influence your mood, emotions and even your health, and it is central to an important component of interior design: color psychology.

What is Color Psychology?

Leatrice Eiseman is the executive director of the Pantone Color Institute and she explains that color psychology is rooted in the emotional, often unconscious connection people have to certain colors. Those color preferences originate in childhood experiences, which determine positive or negative associations with certain hues.

“Sometimes people don't even remember what affected them in their childhood,” says Leatrice. “It's very deep in their psyche. But for children in particular, what is most memorable about color is divided into three categories, and that is: what made you happiest, what made you saddest, and what was traumatic.”

The psychology of color is used by brands to convey certain emotions or feelings through their product’s design. And it is used by designers and homeowners to create a mood in their homes, whether restful, energetic or inspiring.

“We know that that there is a general emotion that is tied to color families, and that's where we start,” says Leatrice, in employing color psychology strategies.

Color Psychology Is Rooted in the Personal

Color psychology may be more of an art than a science. Because color can be very subjective, people react very differently to colors. Some people prefer minimalist, natural and muted colors, while others derive energy and inspiration from bright and bold colors. Think of the difference between the tastefully muted shades in a Nancy Meyers living room versus the juiced-up jewel tones and wild reds of the apartments in Spanish director Pedro Almodovar's films.
Part of using color psychology effectively is first determining which colors you prefer. The next step is deciding which emotions or moods those colors evoke and how to use them effectively in each room of your house.

Culture and Climate Also Play a Part

Leatrice also notes that while feelings around specific colors are very personal, other factors also feed into our relationship to color.

For instance, culture impacts what certain colors mean. Red may elicit very different emotions from someone in China than from someone in America, as just one example. In China red is associated with luck and celebration. But in America we often associate red with warning: a red light, the red and blue lights of a police car, the red line of a plummeting stock market (whereas in Asia, a red line signals a surging market).

By the same token, in the West black is often associated with funerals and mourning. But in Asia white is the color of mourning — associated with rebirth and the transition to the next world.

And cultural trends also play a part. For example, yellow — the brightest color on the color spectrum — was once a popular color for kitchens, associated with cheerfulness and optimism. But over time, the yellow kitchen has been slowly edged out by white. But trend watchers and interior designers are predicting a return to warm, buttery yellows in the kitchen.

Climate also plays a role in color choice says Leatrice. In warmer, sunnier places, Leatrice says that cooler colors can often provide relief. By the same token, in cold, overcast climated, warm colors can bring a necessary comfort and coziness into the home.

How to Use Color in Home Decor

There are a number of ways to use color in your home: in paint choices, in furniture, wallpaper, even lighting with the rise in hue-style colored lights for ambiance. Because color is so subjective, Leatrice recommends considering the mood you want to create in each room and the color you enjoy that would help you achieve that feeling.

“What is the message?" asks Leatrice, “and then go to the colors that speak to that answer.”

A Color Cheat Sheet:

• Blue: Serenity and calm
• Purple: Royalty and luxury
• Pink: Sweetness and compassion
• Red: Passion and excitement
• Orange: Creativity and confidence
• Green: Health and nature
• White: Purity and simplicity
• Black: Sophistication and drama
• Brown: Stability and warmth
• Yellow: Cheerfulness and energy

Ideas for Choosing Color by Room Type

Leatrice specifies that there are no hard and fast rules for the “right” colors in each room. The color red, for example, can mean many things depending on where the shade lies on the color spectrum. “At Pantone, what we try to do is, to delve a little more deeply. There are many shades of red, you know, anything from pink to wine.”

First, and most importantly, choose colors you like and not what you “think” goes with a particular room — the key to making your space a pleasurable experience for you. And then decide if you want a more neutral, softer, “cooler” version of that color in a particular room, such as a soft pink or dusty lilac. Or you may favor “warmer,” more saturated, intense versions of that color like deep red or purple. Warmer colors tend to be orange, red and yellow, while cooler colors are green, blue and purple, but as Leatrice cautions, how intense and saturated or soft and muted one of those colors is can change the mood dramatically.

Bedroom Colors for Serenity

Most people prefer soft, soothing colors for the bedroom. Those colors are conducive to sleep and relaxation says Leatrice; “the cooler colors in the spectrum, which are essentially the blues, the blue greens, lavenders that lean to the cooler side.” Neutrals like off-whites, beiges and grays are also a good fit and tend to be favored in bedrooms for the serenity they bring.

It’s easy to adapt a favorite color to different room needs says Leatrice. “Deep purple — I wouldn't want that in my bedroom. That's too exciting. What I want is something calmer. And so you reduce that down to the lowest level of purple, and you would come up with a soft lavender or soft violet.”

Because an intense color like red has been shown to raise blood pressure, it might not be the best choice for a bedroom. A bright yellow, which increases mental activity and your energy level, might also not be ideal.

Make Your Home Office an Inspiring Think Tank

Leatrice has been seeing more people break away from white and brown in a home office to choose black. Brown represents stability and dependability, but black comes with authority, power and elegance.

“We’re seeing more of the high-end offices in particular,” embracing black says Leatrice, “it’s practical, elegant, sophisticated.”

In a break from the norm for her home office at her former home on Bainbridge Island outside Seattle, Leatrice chose a beautiful muddier yellow. “I wanted to simulate sunshine,” she says, and create warmth as a counter to Seattle’s dreary, rainy climate. “It was just absolutely the perfect choice.”

Bring Energy to a Powder Room

Don’t know where to start on your color psychology journey? Start with the powder room recommends Leatrice.

“Take that little room and turn it into a jewel box” she says, by using a bright turquoise or deep wine color on the walls.

If you want to lean into color, go deep and saturated with a favorite shade of red, gold, green or blue. Because it’s a smaller space that you don’t necessarily experience daily, a powder room is more of a creative canvas.

“That’s the place to experiment and have fun,” says Leatrice.

Design a Living Room That Puts Guests at Ease

Two things to consider when choosing a living room color are what kind of vibe you are going for — relaxation or excitement — and the climate where you live. If you live in a cooler climate, you may want to choose warmer, more intense colors. In a warmer climate, more neutral or lighter shades will provide a psychological respite from the heat and create a cool, calm mood.

While many choose neutrals and white for living rooms, Leatrice sounds a note of caution. “If white is your choice,” she says, “my suggestion would be — based on the physiological aspect of color — if you paint a room blindingly pure, pure white, what happens is you get a lot of reflection bouncing off the walls, and that can cause headaches and eye strain.”

“If you're going to do a white, I would do an off-white,” she advises.

Choose Dining Room Colors That Whet the Appetite

Colors that spike your appetite are a good choice in the dining room.

“There are colors that are known to stimulate the appetite and generally they’re in the warmer range,” says Leatrice. So lean into red, yellow and orange — colors often used in restaurant settings — and allow your guests to enjoy the dining experience even more.

And because it’s a room you don’t necessarily use every day, you might feel a bit more inspired to play with color in the dining room. A deep purple connotes power and luxury, and a warm scarlet or a deep apricot can create the ideal mood for a place where people gather and break bread.

Create a Kitchen That Brings People Together

There's a reason that white is such an enduringly popular color in kitchens. White is synonymous with cleanliness and brightness. It is associated with tranquility and creativity, both qualities it can be nice to have in a space where family gathers for time together and where creativity flourishes over the stove top, Instant Pot or wok.

But it’s no wonder that homeowners are beginning to navigate toward green and blue in the kitchen. Both colors have associations with nature (e.g. trees, grass, plants, sky, water). Green signifies purity, freshness and health, all qualities that make perfect sense in a kitchen. It also has a calming effect, slowing human metabolism. And blue is associated with tranquility and warmth and the reassuring everpresence of the sky, notes Leatrice.

One caveat from Leatrice: if you like to bake a lot, maybe choose a cooler color for your kitchen to keep your emotional temperature down.

Foster a Child’s Bedroom That Lets Imagination Run Wild

Since our feelings about good and bad colors originate in childhood, give your middle schooler or teenager the chance to see the possibilities and creativity in color.

“I am a big believer in letting a child paint the room whatever color pleases them,” says Leatrice.

A nursery might be a different story. Color has been shown to influence sleep and even enhance academic performance. And because bold colors like red or orange tend to be stimulating and inspire energy, they are probably not the best option if you want your baby to go to sleep each night. So give your little one a head start in life and consider neutrals like beiges, off-whites and grays. Or try soft, muted blues and sage or pastel greens for their associations with nature, calming effects and ability to induce sleep. Soft, muted yellows are associated with happiness and are also gender neutral so consider painting an accent wall in a buttery yellow. Chalky neutrals and dusky pinks are another good choice. You can try adding bold colors with accessories and soft goods that can be swapped out if your child tires of them or if they prove too intense.

Remember to Play With Color

Timid about making a big color change in your home? There are plenty of ways to inject a dose of color without leaving you steeped in regret about the shade of green you chose that gives your hallway the ambiance of a hospital waiting room. But do embrace the possibility, advocated in color psychology, of using color to boost your mood or create a sense of well being.

Start small with things you can move around suggests Leatrice. Paint a chair a brilliant peacock blue, she says. Pull out a color from a rug or wallpaper in the room suggests Leatrice, to lend continuity and cohesion. Or if you have glass kitchen cabinets, paint the inside a bright teal or emerald green she says.

Most neighborhoods frown on intense color choices for home exteriors, but you can try a bold or unusual color on your front door. “This is the portal that leads to your house,” says Leatrice, so it’s a great place to create an instant mood and signal your personality to visitors. Take a cue from any flowers or plants that may be near your front door. As just one example, you could go with a deep aubergine to coordinate with the purple plants in your yard.

Experimenting with color in that ways says Leatrice, “encourages you to take that next step. The more you exercise that, the braver you get.”