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Best interior paint color for resale


The Most Popular Wall Paint Colors for Selling a House

Sell your house in a snap with interior paint color advice from real estate pros.

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The time has come: You’re selling your home. And no matter what your situation, ideally you want it off your hands as quickly as possible. One way to help it move quickly is to repaint your interior walls.

“There are several reasons to paint a home prior to selling,” says Shaun Larson, a real estate broker and general contractor with Parks Real Estate near Nashville, Tenn. “One is to refresh the home’s condition from it being worn, resulting in dirty, scratched or chipped walls and trim. Another is to make it appear newer and more marketable, leading to a quicker sale at a higher price.”

But before you pick up the paintbrush, spend some time choosing your paint colors because there are plenty of paint color mistakes that can be made. Larson suggests considering these factors:

With that in mind, here are the colors our real estate pros encourage their clients to paint their interiors for a quick sell.

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White

“Repeat this 10 times really fast: White, white or maybe white is the only interior paint color you need to sell your house well and quickly.” says Baron Christopher Hanson with Coldwell Banker Realty in Florida. “Why? White makes your home look bigger and brighter inside, especially if you are staging.”

White allows the buyer to envision their perfect color palette, Hanson says. “Unless you have a crystal ball, trying to guess which paint colors your highest offer buyer will like is akin to winning the lottery,” he says. Choosing white might save you money, too, because it’s a perfect primer for any color the new owner may want to paint — and may prevent a demand for a painting credit prior to closing.

“Don’t gamble,” Hanson says. “Don’t splurge. Don’t try to read the market’s minds. Just paint your interior white, and let the new buyer choose their own custom interiors colors or wallpapers.”

Eyal Pasternak, a Realtor for Liberty House Buying Group in Miami, says one house that sold quickly was all white with navy blue accents.

“This house was located in a neighborhood with very similar homes,” Pasternak says. “I believe I was able to sell very fast due to the interior paint, which made it easier for the buyer to place their furniture. Other homes in the neighborhood had walls with bold colors, which weren’t looked favorably upon.”

Larson says some of the most popular interior wall colors are Sherwin-Williams Alabaster, Shoji White, Snowbound and White Flour. But be careful. “Consider whether you’re painting walls or trim and ceiling as well,” he says. “If you accidentally mix cool and warm tones, what may have been an attempt to brighten a room may have all of a sudden made something else look yellowish relative to the new paint.”

Need a classic white? Realtor Eric Hegwer of Austin, Texas says Benjamin Moore’s Chantilly Lace is a good bet. He finds most buyers are “indifferent” to accent walls or wainscoting.

Gray, Beige and Greige

On the other hand, some real estate pros told us white can sometimes feel cold. Light and airy should be your priority when choosing interior paint to help sell your home.

Bill Gassett, a Realtor for Maximum Real Estate Exposure in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, loves Benjamin Moore’s Stonington Gray, a light, soft hue he says pairs well with white trim. “When you want to sell your home, it is an excellent choice that is popular with many potential buyers,” he says. “Stonington Gray has looked good in so many homes that I decided to paint some of the rooms in my own home this color. ”

Larson says Sherwin-Williams Repose Gray and Amazing Gray are also popular options for comfy gray.

Bill Samuel, a real estate developer and contractor for Blue Ladder Development, says he loves Behr’s Water Chestnut in a flat finish. “It’s a neutral beige shade that will appeal to a broad spectrum of buyers,” he says. “The flat sheen does a better job of covering up prior blemishes and gives you a cleaner finished look.”

He adds it presents equally well in natural and artificial lighting.

Light Pastels

Our real estate pros generally agree: Some light color is OK if used properly.

“If you want to splash a little more color, the safe bet is to go with light and airy hues like pale pink, light blue, mint green and lavender,” says Rinal Patel, Realtor and co-founder of We Buy Philly Home. “These tones can transform a room and make it feel warm and inviting.”

Light peach and pink can feel luminous, warm and welcoming if done right. Blues are a universal favorite among buyers. Sage green is making a strong comeback. Just be careful — you want potential buyers to feel like the home is theirs, not yours.

Final Tips

“I try to keep tabs on current trends on Instagram,” Hegwar says. “I see a lot of influencers using dark, moody colors, or even Jungalow-inspired bright colors, but those haven’t come to the suburbs of Austin where I’m working.” Which means once again: location, location, location. Make sure your interior paint is in line with the tastes of people where you live.

A final word of advice, from Patel:

“Uniformity is key. You want all of the rooms in your home to flow together, so choose a consistent color scheme. This doesn’t mean every room should be the same color, but pick a few hues that complement each other. Then use them throughout your home to create a cohesive look that potential buyers will love.”

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Best Interior Paint Colors for Selling a House: Making Your House Sell

When people first step foot in your home, the color of your walls can leave a negative first impression or wow them with classic simplicity. So, what are the best interior paint colors for selling a house? Buyers often remember a property they have looked at by its flaws or features that stand out in a negative way. “That house with the Pepto pink bedroom”, or “That awful orange wall in the basement” is not how you want buyers to be talking about your home. You don’t want the wrong colors hindering the sale of your home and depreciating the value of your property. 

Thankfully, paint is one of the easiest and most affordable ways to upgrade your home and get it sell-ready. Let’s explore what the trending interior colors are that can help you sell and get top dollar for your home.

How to Spackle: Tips From the Experts 

Neutral Tones 

Realtors and decorators across the board agree that neutral tones are always a win when it comes to the best interior paint colors for selling a house. Neutral colors are appealing to a wide range of people and coordinate with multiple color palettes. Tones of a neutral nature enable potential buyers to visualize themselves living in your home. They have been a hit with buyers for decades. 

The key is to choose an undertone that compliments your furniture, flooring, and window coverings. Every color of paint has an undertone that is either warm, cool, or neutral. 

Consistency 

When you are choosing the best interior paint colors for selling a house, interior decorators advise picking a color and staying consistent with it throughout your home. Stick with whichever neutral tone you have chosen for all connecting living spaces, including the entryway. Uniformity will make the entire painted area appear more open and spacious.

Lighting 

Don’t forget to factor in the influence lighting will have on your interior walls. Have you ever painted a room only to realize that the end result looks far from the color you had envisioned? This has everything to do with the type of lighting your room is experiencing. For example, the color swatch of your choice may look dusty blue when you are painting it on the walls during daylight hours. But, once the sun sets and all-natural light fades, your walls may appear gray. 

It’s important to consider the type of lighting that exists in the area you’re painting. A dark hallway without much natural light will need a color that works in artificial lighting, while a room filled with sunlight and windows will work best with a tone that reflects natural light. 

Most homeowners don’t enjoy bright lights filling their homes on a day-to-day basis. But, when selling your home, the lighter the better. Fill rooms that have little or no natural light with lamps containing extra bright bulbs. 

Best House Paint Colors

There are countless options to choose from when it comes to picking the most popular interior paint colors for selling your home. If you are struggling to decide amongst the myriad of swatches, it never hurts to see what’s trending in your own neighborhood. Look up recent home listings in your area for ideas of what buyers are drawn to and consider your options.  

Go Gray 

Shades of gray are without a doubt the most loved interior colors of the year. As a color that’s neither black nor white, gray is by far the most popular neutral. The cool hues have taken over beige or tan, which were long-time favorites. Gray is extremely versatile and suits nearly any interior style. It’s a perfect match with other popular neutrals such as beige, taupe, cream, or white. 

Once upon a time, gray was considered to be dull and boring. Now, it is revered for adding character to any home decor style. Gray can be paired with varying textures such as wood, leather, and greenery to add sophistication and depth. 

Wonderful White 

White, in all its various shades and hues, will always be a timeless classic. It’s one of the favorite standard interiors for good reason. White leaves future buyers with a clean slate and gives any space a fresh-kept appearance. Being neutral, it’s guaranteed to work with any style you choose. While white is classic, it isn’t always the best choice for every room. Areas of your home that are highly trafficked or where children will be playing would do much better with a darker color that won’t show dirt and scuff marks. 

One major advantage of white tones is their ability to reflect light and make any room appear larger and brighter. Airy white is a perfect fit for bedrooms and kitchens alike. 

Pale Blue

Soothing and soft, pale blue is making waves when it comes to popular interior hues. While blue isn’t considered a true neutral, pale blue is still versatile and muted enough to be a hit with homebuyers. Perfect for bathrooms and smaller spaces, pale blue nicely complements brick, shiplap, and bright white molding and trim.

Best Time of Year to Paint a House 

When you’re deciding on the best time to paint your house, make sure to choose carefully. We often assume that summer is the perfect time to give your home a makeover. While this can hold true much of the time, you need to consider the specific climate to where you live. The high humidity levels in certain locations can cause problems, especially if there is excessive water vapor in the air. This reduces the paint’s ability to adhere, making it more difficult to spread evenly. 

Winter can actually be a wonderful time to paint the interior of your home. In the winter, humidity levels are low. This ensures that your paint will dry faster and adhere to your walls better. Because many homeowners believe summer is the best time to paint, many painting professions are in high demand during the hotter months. During the winter months, the demand for interior painting services is significantly less which means cheaper quotes for you.

House Color Ideas by Room 

Select a Finish 

Before you pick your color for any room, consider the finish. The reflection and durability of certain finishes may affect which color you go with. Go with a high-gloss for kitchens and bedrooms and a satin finish for your living room. Eggshell works well in bedrooms. Glossy finishes are best for areas with heavy traffic where dirt and smudges easily occur because it’s really easy to wipe clean. 

Kitchen 

To make your kitchen light and airy, choose a color on the pale side, preferably in keeping with the other common areas in your home. You can add dimension by doing your island and cabinets in a slightly different shade. In the current market, when in doubt, you can’t go wrong with white cabinetry. 

Powder Room 

You can have a little more fun with the powder room or guest bath and vier from the color used in the common areas. Get creative and add some personality. But, don’t get too carried away. Even the guest bath needs to be buyer-friendly which is why sage green or light blue are recommended. 

Common Areas 

Common areas include your living room, dining room, and hallways. We recommend going with a shade of gray, beige, or white for these areas. A shade of a neutral nature that isn’t harsh or dark will appeal to a wide variety of buyers while showing uniformity.  

Bedrooms 

In ideal conditions, your common areas and bedrooms should all be painted the same color. If this isn’t a possibility, it isn’t the end of the world. Typically, buyers are the most forgiving of bedrooms as they tend to be of a more personal nature. Still, it is wise not to be too bold and bright as bedrooms should bring us to a place of calm and relaxation. 

Conclusion on Best Interior Paint Colors for Selling a House

If you’re thinking of putting your home on the market or just want to give your walls a fresh, new look, give PaintRite Pros a call. Our team of expert painting professionals, as well as friendly customer service and creative design consultants, will go above and beyond other painting companies. 

Whether you need professional painters to make your cabinets look new, or paint your home’s interior or exterior, fence, or deck, we can make it look just the way you want! Get your free estimate today! We serve the entire Sacramento area including Davis, Stockton, Elk Grove, El Dorado County, and more. We also have employees who speak Spanish fluently!

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Tags: best house paint colors, best interior paint colors for selling a house, best time of year to paint a house, house color ideas

How to choose the right shade of white for painting your house inside and out?

When painting almost any wooden house, white paint is used on its facade or in the interior. Very often hemmed roof boards, platbands, decorative strips are painted white. Inside the house, covering white is usually chosen for painting ceilings, platbands, and window sills. Most paint sellers don't bother with the buyer's problems and offer the only option for all occasions - basic white Teknos paint (TEKNOS).

However, based on our experience and the professional advice of the Finnish Teknos specialists, it is correct to use different shades of white depending on the type and purpose of the surface to be painted.

For example, for painting ceilings made of mineral surfaces with BIORA and TIMANTTI interior paints, the best choice is a snow-white shade of white paint called “clean white” (this shade is often called “super white”).

For painting wooden surfaces, especially on the facade of the house, according to the recommendations of the Finnish specialists Teknos (TEKNOS), the use of "clean white" is not desirable. This is due to several important reasons. In Finland, as in Russia, coniferous species are used as building timber: pine and spruce. When painting conifers, the resin contained in the wood can change the shade of white paint over time. Therefore, the leading Finnish industrial manufacturers of wooden windows and doors: SKAALA, DOMUS, LAMMIN, TIIVI, FENESTRA, ALAVUS and others prefer to paint their products in white with the name "Finnish white". This is a calmer shade of white, in which slight manifestations of resin are less contrasting, and the inevitable surface contamination during operation is less noticeable. It is easy to verify this fact if you attach a sheet of white paper to an ordinary white office door made using Finnish technology. The difference between the two white colors becomes very noticeable.

In addition, the shade of white chosen for painting the architraves or roof boards must be in harmony with the main color of the walls. The question of a harmonious combination of colors is largely subjective and the right to choose the color always remains with the buyer. At the same time, according to our long-term experience of communicating with developers, we can say that with most colors of facade paints for wood and glazing antiseptics, shades: “basic white” or “clean white” contrast very sharply. The most popular colors for painting the elements of the house outside are the colors: Finnish white, white cream or ivory.

The sellers of our TEKNOS brand stores of the TEKNOVIKS company always offer customers to consider and select on the painted samples in the sales area the most successful combination of the facade paint color chosen for painting the walls or the glazing antiseptic with various shades of white paint. It is very important for our company TEKNOVIX that the profession

How to read the label on paint cans

Paints for interior and exterior decoration differ in several ways. Scope of application, moisture and wear resistance, degree of gloss, method of application, consumption and density - a large amount of important information is encrypted in symbols on the label. We will tell you how to read this cipher correctly so that you can determine the properties of the paint and choose the best option without wasting time.

Application

The symbols with a house and arrows show which surfaces the paint is intended for:

How to thin the paint and clean the tools

The symbol on the label of the can will tell you the type of thinner: The paint is thinned with water. Such a product is more environmentally friendly, without an unpleasant odor and well masks the color of the surface. Waterborne paints are suitable for interior decoration.
If an organic solvent is needed to dilute the paint, its type is indicated on the can: white spirit, turpentine, xylene, acetone, etc. Solvent-based paint is more durable and resistant to stress. But due to the toxicity of some solvents, it is used for exterior decoration.

Type of surface and paint consumption

The pictograms show the amount of paint to be applied per 1 sq. m uneven absorbent or flat non-absorbent surface. The symbols of this group help to determine the paint consumption for different surfaces.

Paint density and coating thickness

Density shows how much a liter of paint weighs. The higher the density, the more solid fillers in the paint, which means that the consumption increases and the plasticity of the coloring composition decreases. The higher the number, the greater the coverage cost.

Paint adhesion

The chain or arrow icon indicates that the paint is highly adhesive, that is, it becomes almost one with the surface. Such a coating will be resistant to mechanical and thermal stress, moisture and chemicals.

Paint application

It's simple - the pictogram shows a tool that applies paint to the surface: sprayer, roller, brush.

Paint storage conditions

With the help of several pictograms, the manufacturer shows under what conditions the paint should be transported and stored, how to prepare it for use and application features. Violation of these conditions will lead to a decrease in the quality of the paint and its properties. Apply the paint when the relative air humidity is less than 80% and the air temperature is above +5°C.
Paint doesn't like the cold. The jar can be stored and transported at temperatures above 5°C. Stir paint thoroughly before application. The time it takes for the paint to dry to the touch, i.e. when dust does not stick to the ink film. Time between coats of paint.

Paint base type

Paint for tinting is marked in Latin letters:

Wet rub grade

To indicate this parameter, a universal classification according to the European standard DIN EN 13300 is used. In the laboratory, the paint sample is washed with a stiff brush for 40 and 200 cycles, after which the depth of the worn layer is measured. As a result, the paint is divided into 5 classes:

Transport conditions

The pictograms show how to transport the paint can: upright, protected from moisture and direct sunlight.

Special terms

The description of the paint on the label may contain special characteristics of the product. Let's explain the meaning of the most common terms.

Thixotropy

The ability of paint to become more plastic and viscous. Thixotropic paint is easy to recognize by its appearance - when poured, it resembles a viscous liquid, like sour cream or fresh honey. This product does not leave residue in the jar, adheres well to a roller or brush, and is applied without streaks. As a rule, paints for a matte surface are thixotropic.

Coverage

One of the main characteristics of the product. Means the ability of the paint to completely cover the color of the surface on which it is applied. Often marked in grams per square meter, however, on paint cans of European manufacturers, you can find the hiding power class according to the already mentioned DIN EN 13300 standard:

The higher the grade, the fewer layers of paint will have to be applied to achieve a uniform surface tone. For example, with a class 1 paint, you can repaint a black wall white in just a couple of coats. Paint with class 3 and 4 will have to be applied in several steps and each time wait for the previous layers to dry. If you use wallpaper for painting or decorative plaster, multi-layer application can completely hide the texture.

Dry residue

It is indicated as a percentage and means the ratio of volatile substances to the amount of pigments, binders and plasticizers. The higher the percentage, the less harmful volatile compounds in the paint. Also on the banks you can find the letter designation of the dry residue:

For interior paints, the allowable value is 45-65% or within MS - UHS. Solids content LS or below 45% means poor quality and hazardous to health paint.

Paint marking with code

Some manufacturers encrypt with letters and numbers the types of paints, their type of base, operating conditions and special characteristics. Such characters can be divided into 5 groups:

1. Variety of paint
Letter abbreviations are used:

2. Paint base type
Designated with two capital letters, for example, AU (alkyd urethane), PU (polyurethane), FL (phenolic), AK (polyacrylate), BT (bituminous), NC (nitrocellulose).

3. Operating conditions of paint
Designated by numbers:

4.

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