Latest / Repcolite Home Improvement Show / Best Paint Colors for Mood: How to Choose Colors for Bedrooms, Kitchens, and Living Rooms

Transcript

Best Paint Colors for Mood: How to Choose Colors for Bedrooms, Kitchens, and Living Rooms · Repcolite Home Improvement Show

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, thanks for tuning in. You're listening to Home
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: in Progress by Recolite Pain sponsored by Benjamin Moore. And
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: before I jump into the show this week, I want
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: to take care of just a little bit of business.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: A few weeks ago, I aired a segment that I
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: recorded about hurting myself while grating cheese. You know, basically
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: I grated my knuckles. Anyway, a listener heard all of
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: that and reached out with a link to an amazing
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: rotary shredder. You know, it was going to eliminate all
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: my injuries and have me shredding cheese with no concerns.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: I was pumped about it, so I told you about
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: that two weeks ago. But in the midst of telling
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: you about that, I added this little caveat almost prophetically.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Who knows, Maybe I'll be finger free next week and
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you about the mishap that happened. Well, I'm
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: not exactly finger free, but boy, oh boy, did I
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: ever cut myself on this new shredder. I used to
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: slice her attachment and I was happily slicing up vegetables
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: and then, like an eight, I've reached into the little
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: cone where the blades are you know, to scoop out
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: the slices that hadn't fallen into my bowl, and I
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: dragged my finger over the razor sharp blades. I'd use
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: the thing for a total of like four minutes, and
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: I was already running around the kitchen looking for band aids.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: The kids have officially just taken over all the cheese
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: grading work at the house. I'm not allowed to touch
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: any of it anyway. I told you i'd come back
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: if I had a mishap and tell you about it,
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: and I wanted to make good on that. All right,
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: let's get to the show. And for the last few weeks,
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: we've been talking about what your brain actually wants, you know,
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: from the spaces that you live in, the spaces that
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: we moved through. And in all of that time, we've
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: covered things like coherence, which is basically the common thread
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: that ties a home together. We've talked about variation, the
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: contrast that keeps a space from being you know, flat
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: or boring. We talked about lighting, how it regulates your
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: body chemistry every hour of the day. And last week
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: or not last week week last week I ran rerun
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: the week before, we talked about biophilic design. You know
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: the natural elements that signals safety and calm to your
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: nervous system. Right, natural elements signaling safety and calm. We
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: talked about all of that. Today. We're wrapping everything up,
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: and I want to end where most design conversations usually begin,
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: because I kind of like to do things backwards. It's
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: kind of how I roll. So we're going to end
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: by talking about paint color. But I want to have
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: kind of a you know, somewhat different sort of conversation
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: about paint color than you've probably had before. At least,
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: this is not going to be exactly like other conversations
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: that we've had or maybe that you've read about or
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: listened to, you know, online or whatever. Anyway, most of
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: the conversations that we have about color are about preference,
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: what do you like, what's trending? What looks looks good
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: with your furniture. And those aren't bad questions, those are
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: important questions, but they're missing something. They're missing the fact
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: that color it's not just a matter of taste like
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: all of the other things that we talked about in
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: this little whatever it is, a little series. I guess
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: it's also a matter of biology. You know, the color
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: on your walls is producing measurable physiological responses in your
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: body right now. You know, not metaphorically, not as a
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: mood descriptor, but measurably. You know, in your heart rate,
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: your blood pressure, your cortisol levels, your stress level, your
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: level of alertness, or your calm. There's a pathway in
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: your eye that sends signals directly to the hypothalmus. That's
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: the part of your brain. For those of you who
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: are not up on all the neuro science that I'm
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: you know, really really comfortable talking about, the hypothalamus is
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: the part of our brain that controls the heart rate,
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: your stress hormones. I got all hung up. I'm sorry,
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: I'm stumbling because hypothalma. For some reason, instantly when I
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: said that word, the song I Want a Hippopotamus for
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: Christmas went through my mind, and there's no connection. I mean, slight,
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: you know, hypothalamus, hippopotamus. I am so sorry. I don't
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: know what I've got, but I've got something something wrong
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: with me that should be medicated anyway. The hypothalmus, it's
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: part of your brain that controls your heart rate, your
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: stress hormones, your sleep cycle. It doesn't form images, It
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: just reads the environment and then adjusts your body accordingly.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: And color is one of the things, the many things
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: that it's reading. So when you walk into a room
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: and you immediately feel something calm energized, maybe a little anxious,
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: maybe deeply relaxed, that's not your imagination. That's not just
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: a good color scheme or good decor or good decorating.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: That's your hypothalamus getting a report and your body is
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: responding to the info that it's finding. Okay, maybe that
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: sounds a little bit strange. I don't know, Maybe it
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: sounds like a big stretch to think that color is
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: doing all of that. If you're tempted to think that way, though,
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: just look at all the people, the professionals, professional people.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: You know, these are people who went to school for
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: this stuff, so that means something, right. Look at all
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: the professional people who use color around the world to
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: set a tone and create a feeling. Filmmakers, for example,
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: they go through incredible amounts of work to find the
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: perfect colors to set a mood before a character even
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: says a word. You know, on screen. Hospitals they think
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: about color because they know that a room can either
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: raise the temperature emotionally or bring it down, you know,
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: amp us up or calm us down. Restaurants, app designers,
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: car companies, sports teams, think about that. Sports teams, they're
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: choosing colors with intention because they're trying to create an emotion.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: Retailers do it, product packaging people. All of these people
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: pay close attention to color, and they do that because
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: all of those people are trying to shape a feeling
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: before a single word is spoken, and that alone ought
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: to tell us something. Color may not do all the work,
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: but it absolutely helps push us in a direction. And
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: that matters at home as well. Of course it does
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: because our house, your house, my house, All of our
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: houses are telling a story and setting a tone, whether
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: we mean them to or not. You know, think about that,
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: whether you've done this intentionally, you know, and created some
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: kind of narrative for your house to say, or a
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: tone that your house is setting. If you did that
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: intentionally or not, it's still doing it regardless. You know,
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: it's just happening. The colors in the room. They can
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: help it feel calm, They can help it feel lively, serious, cozy, sharp, cheerful, RESTful,
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: or maybe just a little off, you know, like that
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: one aunt that we've all got so that said color
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: is really playing a role in your home, in your design,
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: and in what your home is saying. You know, with
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: all of that said, let's look into it and let's
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: dig into what the research actually shows about what colors
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: are doing to us. You know, I just said they are,
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: But let's talk about the research. Love digging into the
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: science here. But before I do that, before I get
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: into specific colors and the research, I want to take
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: just a minute to make sure that we're all talking
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: about color in the same way, because when most people
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: think about color, they're really usually only thinking about one
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: dimension of it, and there are actually three, or at
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: least three that I'm going to talk about. The first
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: dimension of color that I want to talk about is Hugh.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: You know, Hugh, that sounds weird when I say it.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: That's why I'm laughing. Hugh. If I had a co
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: host with me, I'd say, did I say that right?
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: And she would probably say, yeah, you did, you nailed it.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: But Hugh, Hugh was the first one that's the color itself,
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: the thing that you're naming when you say this is
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: blue or this is green. He was just the identity
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: of the color So that's the second dimension is brightness,
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: how light or dark it is. A pale sky blue
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: and a deep navy. They're the same hue. You know,
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: they're blue, but they're very different in brightness. And the
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: third dimension that we want to talk about, this is
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: the one that most people really don't think that much about.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: It's saturation. Saturation is how pure or vivid the color is,
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: how much of the actual color is in it versus
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: how much white or gray has been mixed in. You know,
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: a fire engine red and a soft, dusty rose. They're
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: both reds the same hue, but the fire engine red
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: is highly saturated. It's vivid, it's intense, it's pure, you know,
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: pure red. The rose is desaturated, it's muted, it's quieted down,
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: it's softer. And your nervous system responds to those two
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: versions of the same color in completely different ways. Okay,
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: with that out of the way, let's look at the
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: research and let's start with red. You know, red is
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: the most physiologically activating color. Exposure to red environment stimulates
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: your autonomic Oh my goodness, how do I say that word? Autonomic?
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: I'm going to google it a minute. Autonomic pronunciation I
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: don't know if you can hear this or not, but
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: we're going to just roll with it. Autonomic, autonomic, autonomic,
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: there we go. I should have looked that up ahead
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: of time. I did not. Exposure to red environments stimulates
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: your nervous system, and that's really just the part of
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: your body that controls involuntary responses like heart rate and sweating. Yeah, sweating.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: Sometimes my autonomic nervous system is cranking out, you know,
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: working overtime. When it comes to sweating, sometimes I just
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: think about moving and I start sweating. I don't know
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: if that's a problem, that's something medically I should look into,
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: but I'm kind of just I've gotten used to it,
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: you know. I bring a change of clothes with me
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: wherever I go. Anyway, Studies confirm that red increases our
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: heart rate and our skin conduct of Essentially, red tends
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: to put our bodies into a more alert, energized state.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: And that sounds you know, it sounds bad, but it's
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: not a bad thing. You know, depending on the room,
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: that might actually be what you exactly want to happen in. There.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: A dining room with some warm red in it can
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: feel lively and social. For example, A kitchen with red
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: accents has energy and appetite stimulating qualities, which is why
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: so many restaurant brands use red in their marketing, in
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: their interior design, all of that, but a bedroom with
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: red walls, your nervous system is going to have a
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: harder time winding down in there. Not impossible, but it
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: is going to be a little harder. Now, blue blue
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: does the opposite. It measurably reduces your heart rate and
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: your blood pressure. In one particular controlled experiment, participants who
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: recovered from stress under blue lighting relaxed faster, and eighty
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: three percent of them said they felt more relaxed under
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: the blue light compared to conventional white. The relaxation of
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: appears to be about emotional recovery rather than sedation. And
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: what that just means, All of that just means is
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: that your body is calming. But it's not about falling
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: asleep or you know, becoming unaware or you know, you
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: don't care about what's going on around you. Your mind
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: is actually staying relatively sharp. Your body's just calming down.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: So that's blue, and that makes blue genuinely interesting for
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: a home office. You know, you want to be calm
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: in there, not anxious or overstimulated. But you also want
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: to be alert, right, thinking clearly when you're making your
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: big deals, when you're on your phone with your boss,
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: when you're copying and pasting from chat GPT into how
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: whatever work document you're sending, you want to make sure
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: you take out the little parts where chat GPT says,
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: you know, here's what I think, or let me sum
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: that up for you. You know, you want to be
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: alert so you can weed all of that stuff out
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: and look like the professional you're pretending to be. And
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: blue might help you do that. Green that's a color
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: that has the strongest evidence for stress reduction, you know,
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: of all the different colors. A study measuring cortisol, which
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: is the stress hormone, found that walking through a green
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: nature filled environment reduced cortisol by fifty three percent on average.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: Just walking through it reduced cortisol by fifty three percent.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: Green also shows strong associations with improved mood and energy.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: And the people in green spaces or you know, with
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: a lot of green around them, they're not just less stressed,
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: they're more emotionally balanced. You know. It really helps in
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: a lot of regards. Now I want to add something
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: here that most color conversations completely skip over, and I
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: think it's actually the most practically useful thing in this
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: whole segment. The color, you know, the hue itself, whether
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: it's blue or green or warm tope or whatever, is
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: only part of what your nervous system is responding to.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: A second part is saturation, and we're going to talk
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: about all of the impact that has right after. This
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: Progress is brought to you by Repcoal Like Paints and
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: Benjamin Moore. You know, people often think of paint as
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: just another line item on the project's supply list. But
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: here's the thing. Everything you do, every hour of prep,
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: every stroke of the brush, all comes down to the
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: quality of the paint. The paint is the project. Make
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: sure it's the best. And we're back. You're listening to
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: Home in Progress by Repcoal Like Paints, sponsored by Benjamin Moore,
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: and we're doing a deep dive into color psychology. We've
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: talked about it in the past, and it can't be
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: a paint store podcast without talking about color psychology, and
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: we've done that multiple times, but this time we're digging
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: a little deeper, and our goal is time. My goal
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: is to help you see all the things that color
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: is doing behind the scenes. You know, how our brains
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: and our nervous systems are reading certain colors and what
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: responses those colors are producing, even if those responses are
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: under the radar, you know, kind of in our subconscious
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: We may not know that this is happening, but it
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: is happening, you know, behind the scenes. Now, last segment,
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: we were talking about the basics, you know, basics of
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: color psychology, how red energizes, how blues and greens calm
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: us down, and so on. But we ended last segment
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: saying that the hue of the color, you know, the
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: identity of the color, whether we would say it's blue
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: or red or green, the hue of the color is
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: only part of the equation. The saturation of the color
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: is also important, and just you know, just a quick reminder.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: The saturation is talking about how intense the color is,
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: how vivid, how much gray or white is mixed into it,
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: or how much gray and white is left out of it,
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: kind of you know, the brighter, the more saturated a
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: color is, the less gray or white is in it. Anyway,
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: the research on this one is really clear, and it's
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: really not surprising, But saturated vivid colors produce stronger responses.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: Of course they do. You know, a bold, saturated red
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: physically excites the nervous system more than a pale, desaturated
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: version of the same hue. We said that already, that's
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: not surprising. But what about a saturated green or a
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: saturated blue. Here's where it's a little more interesting. What
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: effect does saturation have on colors that tend to make
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: us more calm and relaxed? You know? Is saturation just
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: like increasing the natural power. It's like some kind of
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: super superhero mechanism. It's going to increase the natural power
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: of the color. If green makes you relaxed, saturated green
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: is going to make you super relaxed. Is that how
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: it works? I wish that was how it worked, but
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: it's not how it works. I think the best way
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: to think about saturation and what it's doing is to
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: think of it as a volume knob and turning the
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: volume up on any color, you know, even a calming
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: one eventually overrides the calming properties of the hue itself.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: So a muted sage green is calming, a vivid, highly
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: saturated kelly green is visually exciting, it's physiologically activating. Both
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: are green, but they're doing different things to your body.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: So it's not just enough to choose the right hue.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: You've also got to choose the saturation of that hue,
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: the right volume for your color. But that's not all all.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: It's even more complicated than that. There's a third dimension
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: of color. We talked about the brightness. You know, how
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: darker light it is, of course, and that also needs
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: to be considered because that has its own effect on
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: what it produces in us. And this is really interesting.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: Of all of them, this one's probably the most interesting,
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: partly because the research is a little bit counterintuitive. You know,
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: most of us, I think, would assume that the relationship
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: between brightness and relaxation is pretty simple. You know, darker
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: colors equal calmer settings, right, turn the lights down, will
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: feel more relaxed. That makes sense to me at least,
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: but it's not the whole story. Here's what the research
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: actually shows. Very bright environments are activating. You know, that
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: makes sense, that's not a big jump there. Bright light
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: is a daytime signal. It keeps us alert. But here's
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: the counterintuitive part. Very dark rooms also produce a kind
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: of activation, you know, kind of a sneaky, beneath the
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: surface kind of activation. When researchers measured heart rate in
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: rooms of different brightness levels, they found that dark rooms
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: produced higher physiological activation, which is just a fancy way
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: of saying more stress than medium brightness rooms. And the
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: reason seems to be something really, really old and really
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: automatic in our nervous system. Darkness makes it harder for
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: our brain to fully read the environment, to assess what's there,
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: where things are, whether everything is safe, and so it
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: stays slightly on alert, you know, not anxious necessarily, not
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: stressed in an obvious way, but not fully settled either.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: There's kind of this low hum of vigilance running underneath
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: a cozy feeling. An interesting study supported this by showing
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: that people actually displayed a stronger startle reflex in dark environments.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: And this happens because of all the things we just said.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: In those darker environments, even when we consciously feel calm,
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: our brain is running a background process. You know, it's checking,
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: it's staying ready, it's always on the alert, you know,
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: even if it's just in the background, and the slightest
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: little thing can produce a response. In us. So overall,
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: the picture for brightness looks like this. Very bright activating
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: you know, that's good for daytime function, not great for
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: winding down. Very dark can feel cozy on the surface,
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: but it produces its own kind of sneaky, you know,
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: nervous system vigilance underneath that kind of keeps us a
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: little bit wired. Medium brightness, goldilock brightness, particularly with warm light,
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: is where your nervous system lands most comfortably. You know.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: It's bright enough for the brain to feel oriented and safe,
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: warm enough to signal evening you know, and rest, you know,
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: and all of those good things, and it's dim enough
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: to not be stimulating. Now, all of that, everything we
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: just went through demonstrates how there are a ton of
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: different things to consider when choosing your color. I mean,
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: if you weren't nervous about picking colors before, you're probably
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: freaked out a little bit. Now there's a lot going on.
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: The hue, the saturation, the brightness. You got to get
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: it all right because they all play a role. What
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: does that look like practically in our homes? How do
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: we get it right? Well, let's talk about that. Let's
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: give some examples and make you feel comfortable with it,
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: and let's do it right after. This Home in Progress
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: is brought to you by Repcolite Paints and Benjamin Moore.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: Think about it. You spend hours prepping, sandy, taping, and
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: then finally painting. Don't throw all that work away with
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: an inferior product. The paint isn't just another supply. The
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: paint is the project. Make sure it's the best and
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: we're back. You're listening to Home in Progress by Repcolite Paint,
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: sponsored by Benjamin Moore, and we're talking about color psychology,
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: the effect that color has on us as we use
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: it in our homes and our businesses and in pretty
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: much any way that you possibly can use color. And
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: like I said, I've talked about color psychology so many
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: times before, and I usually admit when I do that
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: I get it, you know, I get it. It makes sense.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: I accept it. I will let it go. I will
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: accept it as established truth. But part of me, you know,
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: usually thinks it's a bit much. But this deep dive
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: into it, you know, this particular one has finally connected
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: all the dots for me. And that's how I work.
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: You know, I usually need a lot of little things
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: to fall into place, and finally all the dots connect,
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: and the people around me breathe the sigh of relief
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: because now I finally understand it. It takes way longer
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: for me than other people. Anyway. We're not saying that
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: just because you painted a room red means you're going
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: to feel that energy every time you walk in. You know,
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: that's what I was expecting. I'd walk into red rooms
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: and I didn't feel this urge to fight or flight,
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: you know, not more than normal anyway, And I was thinking,
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: this whole color psychology thing, it's pretty weak. No, see,
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: it's not going to produce those kind of results, Thank goodness,
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: it doesn't, you know, Thank goodness, that's not how it works.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: What we're saying is that red is literally going to
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: do something to you biologically. You know, when you experience
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: red or whatever color, you know, but red, for this example,
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: when you experience red, you know, in a space, it's
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: going to do something biologically. You can't control that. It's
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: going to cause this reaction in your brain and you
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: may not consciously feel it. You can't stop it, you
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: can't start it, but it's there. It's doing something to you,
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: and that's going to affect your overall comfort and peace
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: or energy and alertness in a given space. How much
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: is it going to affect you? That's impossible to say,
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: at least for me. It's impossible for me to say that.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: But it will have an effect even if it's just
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: beneath the surface. That's the thing that finally connected. And
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: now how to all makes sense and I can accept
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: it wholeheartedly, and all the interior designers everywhere around the
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: world breathe a sigh of relief because I am on
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: their team. Now I'm all in on this. So the
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: main point that I've been trying to make in all
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: of this, you know, this conversation, as well as all
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: the conversations I've had over the last you know, two
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: or three weeks about this concept. The main point I'm
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: trying to make is that our brains and our nervous
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: system responds to the spaces around us automatically. Right. We
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: don't choose it, we don't flip it on and off.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: It just happens. And since those responses can affect whether
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: a room feels calm or tense, RESTful or stimulating, I
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: think it's really worth paying attention to because if we're
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: not paying attention to it. It's entirely possible that we're
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: creating spaces in our homes that look beautiful maybe, but
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: still are working against the atmosphere that we're trying to build,
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: you know, what we're trying to create in that room. Now,
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: what I want to talk about in the last little
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: bit here is going to be some practical color guidance,
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: you know, based on various rooms of the home and
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: all of that, and how you go about picking colors
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: and what you might look for. But before I get
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: to all of that, there is something that you need
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: to know, and you need to decide this before you
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: pick any colors for any space. You know, it's really
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: something that you need to do before you make any
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: design decisions for your home or your business at all.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: What is this one thing you need to do before
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: you do anything else. I've talked about it on the
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: show before, Haley has come back and talked about it recently,
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: I think, But you've got to decide what feeling you
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: want to create in a given space. That's the very
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: first thing you need to figure out. What kind of
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: feeling are you trying to create in a given space?
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: You know, don't start thinking, I like greens, So when
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: I paint that room, let's pick some you know greens.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna go get some colored chips. You know, don't
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: don't start there. Instead, you want to think about what
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: room you're working on, and you want to try to
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: pin down what you think you want out of that room.
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: And this is a little bit nebulous, but there's a
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: you know, a thought train to get on board and
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: just kind of ride for a while, you know, think
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: about what do you want out of that room? You know,
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: what are you going to do most often when you're
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: in that room. What's the purpose of the room? What
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: do you want to feel when you walk into it?
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: What do you want guests to feel when they come in.
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: If you're one of those people who has guests over
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: some of us don't. If you are, what do you
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: want your guests to feel? You know, do you want
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: the room to be a lively place for conversation and
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: entertaining and things like that, or are you looking for
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: a place to settle down to the book at the
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: end of the day. You know, I believe, firmly believe
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: that this is a part of the conversation, the color
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: conversation the color decision, whatever you want to call that.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: It's a part of that process that we completely forget about.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: You know, I'm in this business and I think about
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: this stuff almost all the time, and I forget about it.
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: When I did my living room, I have talked about
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: my living room ad nauseum. It was the room with
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: ap peeling paint and I finally got that fixed. And
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: then I picked a color. And I was agonizing over
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: the color. And what I agonized over is what color
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: is going to look good in there? It's, you know,
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: an eastern exposure. So what color do I pick? I
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: had so many things in my mind. What is the couch?
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: What are the things that I'm keeping? I did radio
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: segments on it where I talked about, you know, how
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: to work around stuff that you're you're not getting rid of,
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: and how to look at certain things and realize, Okay,
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: this couch has to go. You know, it's old, and
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: don't don't make my color, you know, don't choose my
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: color based on an old couch. I could go on
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: and on. I hope you get what I'm saying. I
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: put all kinds of thought into choosing this color. What
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: I didn't think about is what I want to feel
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: when I'm in that space, and what I want to
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: feel when I do think about it is calm and
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: relaxation and peace and comfort and all of those things.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: That's what we wanted out of that space most of all.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: And what we chose was kind of a bright not bright,
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: I shouldn't say it that way, a really warm yellow
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: that just lights up the place in you know, in
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: the morning with the eastern light coming in. It's it's wonderful,
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: it's it's it's so inviting, it's energizing, it wakes you up,
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: gets you moving. It is not what I want. At
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: the end of the day. It's just not working for me,
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: and I'm going to have to repaint it. So I
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: do this stuff all the time and I don't think
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: about first and foremost what I want out of that space,
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: what I want to feel in that space. That is
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: the first thing you've got to do. Because you can
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: pick all the right colors, you know, beautiful colors, and
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: put a beautiful color scheme together, but if they're not,
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: you know, color psychology wise, working towards the feeling or
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: the atmosphere that you hope to create, you're not going
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: to end up getting there. You're going to do what
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: I did, get a great color on the wall, put
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: all the time and energy and money into it, and
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: still not really enjoy that space. So give it some thought.
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: Focus on it. That's the very first thing you should
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: be doing anytime you're doing you know, pretty much any
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: kind of interior design work in the home. Figure out
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: what atmosphere you're trying to create. What is the feeling
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: you're trying to get out of this space? Think about that?
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: All right, that's the first thing. Now let's get more
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: practical and look at a few different rooms of the home,
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: and I'll show you what I'm talking about and how
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: to do it all, and I'll kind of pull all
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: of this together. But let's do that right after this.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: You're listening to Home in Progress, where the projects are real,
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: the mistakes, they're educational, sometimes painful, mostly educational, And the
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: only thing more stubborn than that old wallpaper on your
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: bathroom wall is your determination to get it fixed. Probably
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: sponsored by Repolite Paints and Benjamin Moore Paint with a purpose,
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: people who care and everything you need to get the
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: job done right. Welcome back. You're listening to Home in Progress,
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: brought to you by Repcolite Paints and Benjamin Moore, and
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: I want to wrap up this whole color conversation so
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: you can get on with the rest of your day.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: I mean, I got things to do too, So we're
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: going to wrap this up so we can get out
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: of here and start working. I'm hoping in this last
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: segment to take all the things that I've kind of
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: talked about throughout the earlier parts of the show and
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: tie everything together here so you can see how it
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: all works together and how you can go about finding
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: the right colors for your home and get the right results,
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: you know, every single time. That's the goal here, and
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: I think the best way to do that is to
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: just look at some rooms, you know, some specific rooms,
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: and show you how the process works. So let's start
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: with a bedroom, all right, So with a bedroom in mind,
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: before you run to the paint store and start looking
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: for colored chips and samples, first thing we've got to
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: do is what we talked about last segment. You've got
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: to decide what you want out of the space, right
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: That's the first step in all of these every interior
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: design decision you make. The first step should always be
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: deciding what kind of atmosphere you want to create. Now,
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: for most of us, we're talking a bedroom here, So
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: what we're looking for is a place to kind of
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: recover from the day. That's what I'm after. I'm just
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: after a place where I can recover from what I
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: put myself through in the other sixteen hours or whatever
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: it is of my day. You know, we're looking for
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: a space in the home, probably the primary space, where
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: we want our nervous systems to wind down, to settle eventually,
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: to go to sleep and just check out for a while,
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: you know, sweet us a relief before we wake up
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: and have to do all of this all over again.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: So with that atmosphere in mind, you know, if that's
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: what you're after in a bedroom, you're usually going to
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: be better off leaning into softer, quieter color families, So
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: think muted blues, gentle greens, warm off whites, soft natural neutrals.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: You know, in a bedroom, the goal is not to
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: create a lot of visual activity, you know, not a
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: lot of visual excitement. It's to create a sense of
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: ease and peace, and that usually is going to mean
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: using lower saturation in your color's lower contrast and colors
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: themselves that feel settled, not loud, so medium tones they're
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: ideal in a space like this. And then you know,
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: choose those colors and let the lighting handle the coziness
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: side of things. You know, warm bulbs and lamps, dimmed lighting,
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: they can make the space feel inviting at night, while
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: the wall color does the quieter work of keeping the
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: room calm and visually gentle. In other words, you want
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: the color palette to support rest, not compete with it.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: All right, that's the bad. Let's look at a kitchen,
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: and a kitchen is going to be a completely different animal.
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: It's usually a space for energy. You know, we have
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: got a lot of movement, a lot of engagement, a
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: lot of conversation, appetite, you know, all of those things
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: are you know, feelings and you know parts of the
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: atmosphere we generally want to create in a kitchen. So
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: with that in mind, warmer hues often make much more
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: sense here because they tend to feel more active, you know,
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: more lively, more inviting. Remember though, that brightness and saturation
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: matter just as much as hughe in this conversation that
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: we're having. So in a kitchen, warm colors can be great,
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: but if they get too bright or too saturated, the
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: room can start to feel loud, you know, busy, a
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: little bit exhausting. So the better move is usually warmth
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: with a little bit of restraint. So a softened yellow,
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: a muted clay, a creamy off white, or a warm,
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: earthy neutral. Often all of those colors are going to
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: give you that liveliness that you want without overwhelming the space.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: You know, what you're trying to do is let the
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: kitchen feel warm and awake, But you don't want to
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: turn the volume all the way up right, keep that
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: saturation volume, you know, don't go to eleven, don't turn
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: it up to eleven, keep it right around four or five.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: What about living rooms, they're a little bit trickier because
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: their purpose changes, you know, from house to house, and
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: honestly from hour to hour to some extent, but for
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: sure from house to house. If your living room is
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: mainly a social space, you know, a place for entertaining,
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: for conversation, for family time, then warmer tones, you know,
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: they make a lot of sense because they tend to
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: support connection and engagement. But if it's more of a
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: wind down space where you want to read, watch TV,
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: or just decompress after work. Then cooler, softer, more muted
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: colors may serve you better. And again, it's not just
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: about whether color is warm or cool. Brightness and saturation,
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: you know, never forget that part of the conversation. A
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: warm color that's too bright can feel restless. A cool
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: color that's too dark or heavy can feel flat or
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: closed off. Usually, that sweet spot in a living room
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: is going to be a color with some personality but
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: not too much volume. You know, it doesn't have to
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: be neutral, but it can lean in that regard. And
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: the nice thing is if you've got something that is
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: somewhat neutral, you're going to be able to make that
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: room a little more flexible. You know, you can push
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: the mood warmer or cooler through furniture and textiles and
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: lighting without having to repaint the whole thing. You know,
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: I went too far. I pushed my room so that
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: the color dominates the space. You know, I can put
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: all the throw pillows out that I want. It's not
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: going to change the tone that I've created in that space.
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: But you can choose a color in your living room
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: that gives you the freedom to kind of move it
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: a little bit, and you know throughout the day or
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: based on your needs to flex a little bit, so
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: a little more neutral might help you out there, all right?
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: What about a home office, This honestly might be one
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: of the more interesting rooms because what you need here
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: is a specific balance. You know you want calm, but
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: you also want alert. You don't want a room that
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: makes you feel wired or distracted, but you also don't
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: want one that makes you feel sleepy or checked out
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: or disengaged. And that's why cooler, quieter tones often make
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: a lot of sense in a workspace. Soft blues, muted greens,
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: gentle grays, all of those can help create a sense
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: of steadiness and focus without the agitation that warmer, louder
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: colors can sometimes bring. So the sweet spot is usually
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: something softened and a little bit restrained. So pale blue,
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: muted sage, a dusty green, maybe a gray with just
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: enough warmth to keep it from feeling sterile. Those are
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: the kinds of colors that can support sustained thinking and
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: concentration without making the room feel either tense or dull. Bathrooms,
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: let's look at them, and then we'll wrap this up.
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: Bathrooms are a little bit unique too, because for most
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: of us. They're less about energy or focus and more
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: about you know, refreshment, not food, refreshment, refreshing ourselves being refreshed,
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: not enjoying refreshments. Most of us don't don't enjoy a
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: lot of refreshments in the bathroom. That's a little bit weird.
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: In some homes, let's just move on. The bathroom is
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: purely functional, right, It's a place to get in, to
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: wake up, to get moving. However, in other homes, I
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: think in most other homes, the bathroom can be one
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: of the few spaces in the house that's meant to
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: feel really really quiet and private and restorative. You know,
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking you've got a bathtub there, and somebody just
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: wants to spend hours in that because it's their only
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: time when the kids aren't hounding them. Provided they can
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: get that door locked and drawers pulled in front of it,
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: because the kids always pick those little locks. They can
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: get those open, you know, the bathroom locks. They can
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: get through those like butter. But you open up that
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: drawer right inside the door, can't get through that. Maybe
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: some people go and use the bathrooms for those kinds
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: of things, you know, just to finally have some peace
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: and quiet. Well. If that's the case, softer colors work
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: really well here. Cool whites, gentle blue grays, muted greens,
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: soft topes, you know, clean restrained tones. All of those
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: will help a bathroom feel calm, fresh and uncluttered. At
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: the same time, you don't want the room to feel
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: cold and clinical, you know, unless that's truly the look
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: that you're after. After all, who doesn't want a cold
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: and clinical space? That's pretty nice? I do love your
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: bathroom reminds me of the lab in the hospital. And
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: where do you keep the cotton balls? Where are those
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: little you know, those little gloves. Do you have those
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: in the drawer here? If cold and clinical isn't your jam,
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: then the sweet spot is usually a color that feels
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: clean and light but still has a little bit of
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: softness or warmth in it. So pale green, a misty blue,
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: a warm white, a light grayish you know, can do
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: that really well. In a bathroom. You're usually aiming for
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: some combination of calm, cleanliness, leaning heavily on the cleanliness maybe,
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: and clarity, you know, the chance to find clarity, to
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: refocus your soul again before you have to go outside
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: and face uh, well, the world, but you know, largely
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: just your family. You want the space to feel like
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: a reset, not like another room that's asking something from
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: your nervous system, just a place where you feel some peace.
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: So keeping all of that in mind as you choose
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: your colors is really important because if you're not picking colors,
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: they're going to lean towards that. You know, it's not
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: going to override you know, the piece that you get
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: out of just having some privacy in the bathroom. It's
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: not going to completely override that, but it's going to
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: be working against you. And that's really what all of
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: this was all about all along, is trying to work
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: away or get away from anything in your home color
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: wise or design wise, that's working against what you're trying
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: to achieve. Right, the rest of the world is already
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: working against us on a regular basis. It would be
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: nice to know that our home itself is working with us,
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: you know, with our nervous system, towards our greater goals.
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: That was my point in all of this. You know,
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: I started off weeks ago with a single question that
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: I still think is really important. What does it mean
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: to feel at home? You know, feeling at home is
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: a phrase that we use all the time. We use
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: it all the time we talk about making a house
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: a home. What are we chasing when we try to
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: do that? What are we talking about when we say
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: we want to make a house a home? What makes
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: your house feel like your home? You know, we all
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: have that idea of what that is for us. And
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: maybe you can't pin it down and verbalize it, but
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: the feelings are there. You know what home feels like
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: or should feel like, and you know if your home
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: is doing that for you. And I bet that most
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: of us, you know, most of our homes are succeeding
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: at this. There's a level of comfort that we have
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: just being in our own space, warts and all. You know,
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: it's ours. We can use the bathroom here without any concern.
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: As long as we can get that drawer out and
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: the kids can't get in, we can use the bathroom there.
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: Nobody's gonna you know, I'll move on. It's home. But
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: maybe within your home there are parts or spaces that
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: don't produce the same feelings, the same calm or peace
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: or hominess. You know, I don't know what the right
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: word is. I've got areas like that in my home.
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: You know, largely the home does a good job. There
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: are areas where it's just not producing that same calm,
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: that same piece, that same atmosphere that I'm shooting for.
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: And I've tried to figure out what's not working in
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: those rooms, and I've never really been sure. The colors
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: are good colors, the furniture is arranged well, everything should
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: be good, but it still feels a little bit off.
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: Maybe you've got areas like that too, and that's what
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: all of this was about, helping you find those areas
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: and seeing that there's something else going on beneath the
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: surface that could be impacting how you feel in your home.
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: Our brains are nervous systems. They're constantly reading the spaces
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: that we move through, and if little things are off,
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: they just won't relax and settle and rest. We won't
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: feel right. We'll be nagged, you know, by some lurking
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: feeling that sometimes we can't even name. We can't stop
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: this system, we can't turn it off. We don't even
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: have to, you know, really notice that it's happening, but
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: it's there. So that's what this was about. Be aware
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: of that, be aware of that reality, and make your
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: design decisions with that in mind. And remember when it
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: comes to anything color related, We've got color consultants at
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: each Repcolite location who will gladly help you with any
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: question you've got. Come in with photos, come in with samples,
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: and talk to us. You know, we want you to
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: find a color that you love and we'll work with
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: you until you find it. I've said it before. I mean,
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: we talked about on the show, but we believe this wholeheartedly.
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: You can have the best paint on your wall and
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: you can apply it with the skill of an eighteenth
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: century artisan. You know, it can be immaculate and perfect
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: and beautiful. It can be tough, it can resist scuffs
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: and were it can clean up like a dream. It
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: can be the best in terms of quality and craftsmanship.
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: But if you don't like the color, it's still a
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: complete loss. Color is the top dog. You've got to
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: get the color right. Will help stop out at any
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: Repcolite location and start the conversation. All right, that's going
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: to do it for this episode. If you want to
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: find it again, you can find it online at Repcolight
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: dot com. Whatever you do today makes your paints a
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: part of it. Have a great weekend everybody, and I'll
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: see next time. I'm Dan Hansen for Home in Progress.
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.