The Bedroom Paint Color Real Estate Agents Always Recommend to Clients
Ready for a riddle? What color should you avoid painting your living room, but definitely consider for your bedroom?
Stumped? Perplexed? Are you… hint, hint… blue in the face?
The answer is, in fact, blue. And this isn’t just the opinion of real estate experts. Zillow paints a pretty good picture for homeowners when it comes to the interior colors that are correlated with higher sales. According to the real estate marketplace, blue walls in a living room lowered a home price by nearly $200 (not too bad), with bright blue proving to be the most polarizing. But blue bedrooms? They’re a boon for property values and, according to Zillow, “a deep, restful shade of blue” makes potential buyers so happy they’d pay $1,491 more for the home.
There’s some science backing up the case for blue bedrooms, too. A 2018 study published in “Frontiers of Psychology” involving university students living in residence halls found that shades of blue have a more calming effect on the brain.
Real estate agents are also partial to blue in the bedroom.
When you’re designing your bedroom, you want to choose a wall color for your bedroom that makes you feel calm, and to create a space that you look forward to retreating to at the end of the day, says real estate broker Amy Rapp with the Pfeifer Becker Residential team at Compass in Chicago. Warm, muted tones of gray and blue work well with almost any decor, she says.
“Remember you will be seeing the color at different times of day, so it’s a good idea to put up some samples on the wall and see how you feel about the color in both natural daytime light and evening light,” Rapp says.
Bill D’Ambrosio, a real estate agent in White Plains, New York, agrees that blue is a calming color that creates a peaceful environment ideal for the bedroom. For those who want a more nature-inspired bedroom, sage is a good choice, he says.
In addition to moody blues, light blues, and bright blues, Zillow data shows that homebuyers paid a little more for homes with bedrooms that were forest green, light gray, or white.
Poppy Troupe, a Coldwell Banker Realty agent based in Norwell, Massachusetts, recommends Benjamin Moore’s Paper White for a bedroom. “It’s my go-to white for creating a luxe serene bedroom, especially when paired with crisp white bedding and warm hardwood floors,” she says. “Not too cool, it has an undertone of warmth.”
Just as important as deciding on a color for your bedroom is ensuring that it fits with the “color story” of your home. When you decide on the best paint color for any room in your home, it’s helpful to develop a color of five to six similar toned paint colors that will help create a cohesive flow throughout every room, says Chicago real estate broker Jason Davis, founder of the ACD Group at Compass.
From there you can apply an 80/20 rule where the majority of your home (i.e. 80 percent) is broadly one color and you can strategically incorporate pops of other colors in key areas of detail (i.e. think trim, smaller spaces, and accent walls) for the other 20 percent, Davis says. He likes Alabaster White, a soft, creamy white, by Sherwin Williams for an “80 percent” color to be used throughout the home, including the bedroom.