My LR is BM Ocean Air and I consider that a neutral because you can never really tell what color it is it is in with the green grays in the deck and blue in my LR. My stairwell is Black Jack (which is...black). I don't think my issue is so much with color, I can work with a loose palette or No palette really...my problem is not using enough pattern. (despite the clashing chair)

I've had people tell me the yellow table is hideous, but once I got it home and lived with it, I didn't feel like painting it anymore. But again, not much in the way of pattern

I had started a post on conversations about lamenting the loss of colour in our homes as neutrals seemed to be taking over. We have just done a whole house reno and my house, the entire thing, has wound up being beige. I am doing my best to liven it up with colour starting with adding an accent wall of BMCC-2 in our DR and repainting our hallway today with a colour that has a hint of yellowy-green to it.
I don't change accessories with the season but I was really feeling the loss of colour.
To me, committing to colour is more than going to home sense and buying a coloured vase, or going to BB&B and buying green towels. I wanted to add interest to my home by adding colour and showing a belief in the value of colour.

We were cross-posting. but pal, you have, in my opinion, committed to colour through your red chairs and through your yellow table. I love the yellow table, especially as I also have a yellow curio table which I love. Hmmm, maybe I should bring it out of the MB and show it off.

roses, I have never met a green that I didn't like. Why have I not added more in green into my own home? Hmmm. Maybe I'm more of a slave to trends than I like to think.

Pal, I think your taste is impeccable and I admire it so.
I see plenty of pattern in the placement and grouping of objects in your home rather than using a lot pattern in fabric. And there is pattern in your rugs and the mirrors in your doors too.

What am I missing that you think you're missing?

I think a person's desire for a neutral background depends on so many factors like the quality of natural light in their home, their personal history with color, the frequency that they need to see changes in their decor, their ability to repaint, etc. I'm sure we can all think of more variables to add to the list.

I lived most of my life in rentals with white walls. Consequently, most of the color in my homes came from furnishings, art and accessories. When I finally purchased a home, I found that I didn't like the look of my stuff against most wall colors. I still use a neutral paint palette...not white, but neutral.

I occasionally see a room painted in a dramatic dark color and have a momentary flirtation with the idea of painting one of my rooms in that hue, but the fancy usually passes when I start to imagine the color with my existing furnishings.

Oh, how wonderful it would be to have the funds to redecorate my whole house at my whim or to have a second home to furnish in a totally different style. Perhaps in my next life...

The most memorable house I have been in lately had strong colors on the walls. It was really well-done and the owner clearly had a great eye for color. I didn't know the woman (our kids are friends) and I asked her, "Are you an artist?" Bingo. She's a painter.

It's amazing how a "real" color can be interpreted as a neutral if one executes it with intention & chutzpah!

Case in point: a real life living room I saw painted Marlboro Blue, which is not a timid Ben Moore hue, teamed up with reds & oranges in the upholstery, blues & greens & a little orange in the rug, white scattered here & there.

This true, unmistakable blue was a wonderful backdrop for all those other colors. Believe me, it more than worked, it looked spectacular! No beige or cream wall ever could look as good in this context.

My first two homes were very neutral with white on white color schemes and a few splashes of color but mostly soft quiet palettes than while in the mists of making decorating choices in my present home I was diagnosed with meniere's disease which is causing me to lose my hearing and now coincidently I have been using lots of color and it is no longer a quiet color palette it is much "louder" I am craving visial stimulation to replace my audio sensations I think. Pal, your rooms are lovely and quite stimulating, definetly content based!!!

Lizzie, I agree. I too, strongly consider the day I may put my house on the market when choosing paint colors. I'm getting ready to re-do a bathroom (which I recently talked about on Roses' other thread about color) & indeed, don't want to pay to have this large room with high ceilings painted twice!

All the staging books I've read also advise against white walls! They say they look cheap, apartment like, and dull. So, I think you're on the right track to use soft, muted colors...neutrals aren't defined by stagers as just beiges & creams. I think your word "muted" is key.

I currently have a very soft blue in the masterbath (Sweet Bluette, BM) which I may keep, & the soft green that's in my kitchen (Wintergarden, SW) the real estate agent I consulted really liked. She also, for that matter, liked the deeper, more olive green in my study, & said not to change it! Guess while it is a deep color (Georgian Green, BM) it is fairly muted...not Kelly green!

It's funny--I just mentioned to my husband that every time I decide to paint a room, we get another shade of tan/brown in the house. When I bought my house 7 years ago, I'd lived in rentals and was really into color --so I painted the dining room & the kitchen & hallway open to the dining room yellow (and had a rust, cranberry, and gold color scheme with drapes, etc.), guest bedroom is a deep burnt orange, and the home office is an orange in between peach & pumpkin. I loved it at the time. But now the yellow rooms are all a light caramel, and I'll probably paint the guest room and home office later this year.

I'm drawn to color in magazines & like to bring in color with accessories. But for walls & upholstery, neutrals really appeal to me.

Resale is a bit of a factor, but I really just like the flexibility of being able to change colors within the room (accessories, fabric, etc.) without repainting. Bright colors seem to be pushed a lot on design shows/etc., so sometimes I do feel like I'm out of style, color-wise. :-)

Painting for resale is like never using your good dishes.

Pal, this is why I visit here...so enjoy seeing lovely homes while enjoying my morning tea!

Suero your post made me smile. I did hesitate before painting my DR orange. I am so glad I did it though. It makes me smile everytime I walk through it (we dont actually use the room much, that is another story)

For me, what works is using the same colors differently in each room. The downstairs of my house is blue, orange and green. I have swapped rugs between all the rooms for a change, and I can move artwork and drapes if I choose to as well. My DR is orange, the LR is green, and the rest of the downstairs is painted light blue. Someday I will not have 3 messy boys, a messy DH and 3 cats. Then I can add throw pillows and some upholstered pattern in to the mix.

For the upstairs all the rooms are in shades of blue, red and green. Most things work in any of the rooms, and some even work in the downstairs.

Works for me. :)

Suero - you do make a good point. But, the problem (in my mind) is that while almost everyone will sell their house eventually, so few people who have no current plans to move think about resale - it always seems far off, but then eventually, it is (suddenly, it seems) there, and there's tons of work to do.

We have no current plans to move, but expect we'll probably put out house on the market in the next several years, to free ourselves up to relocate. So, I've been closely watching the real estate market in my area, looking at the photos online, etc.. What strikes me is, (as experts have also said), although there is a ton of inventory, most of it is not "good." So many people seem to have painted a bedroom, say, purple, for a child, maybe another one bright green, etc.. And they don't repaint before putting it on the market. The house next to me is on the market and has pink and turquoise walls (in New England.) These houses stay on the market for months, sometimes over a year. Yes, the market is bad, but things ARE selling. Experts do say that right now you can easily distinguish your property simply by decluttering and depersonalizing, which includes making it look "clean" with neutrals.

So, my point is that if people want to use "real" (taste-specific) colors, they will either need to put in a lot of work and/or money down the line, or will have problems with resale. If you are fine with one of these two options, then fine. Personally I don't want to have to repaint when it comes time to sell... there will be a lot of other tasks that need to be done. People always say that paint is an easy change, but in reality, it is a lot of work if you're doing more than one room at a time. If you pay someone to do it, it's not only expensive, it's also still an inconvenience. Again, some people may not mind that at all. But, I do think that resale issues are one of the reasons neutrals have become so popular.

(And I was actually thinking about this last night while in bed, for some reason. Neutrals also tend not to scream out the era in which they were painted. Almost any "real" color will become dated. Neutrals may fall out of favor - no longer be the "height of style" - but they will not look "dated." Other colors which fall out of favor end up looking dated. Again, it's kind of a maintenance issue... if you don't mind repainting every now and then, then no problem. If you want a lower-maintenance house with more enduring style, then neutrals (or muted colors) are a good way to go.)

Again - I do like color. But I am also kind of lazy. :-) I want to paint once and be done with it, and spend my decorating energy on accessories and furniture.

There is a lot of ground covered between taupe-y beige and purple though.

I think there are a number of confounding factors when it comes to taste specific paint and resale, however. And remember this is coming from a person who puts more personal emphasis on "contents-based" interiors vs. "paint-based" schemes.

Here, anyway, a lot of people repaint when they move in, regardless. If you have pictures hung up, the paint usually looks different behind the pictures, there are nail holes etc. and no color looks good if you can tell where someone else's artwork was. (and neutral usually disguises this less.)

Many people who paint bright colors are also the types of people who repaint often. They often do it fast. They often don't do a great job. This is often easier to see if the color is intense or is high contrast with other colors.
When I see a bad paint job I also tend to think...what else have they been careless about with this house? I don't know that there is really any correlation here, this is just me.

As for inventory, this is the most complex issue of all. Houses in an established city will have an inherent value strictly based upon their location and it may be a matter of a block or two that gives the house a particular value to someone.

A house in a development among other houses in the development (and, among other nearby developments) may have no inherent value of its own, because there is another one for sale just like it a few streets away. Or, worse, there may be a development two miles down the road (negligible in a car-based society) that is brand new, so why buy even a 5 year old house? Under those conditions, sure, why bother with a house that has Anything about it you don't like?

Well-said Pal. Every situation is different. There are lots of variables in the mix, & configurations thereof.

with or with out color, A house lacking a soul will not sell quickly, so if you are keeping it neutral solely for resale you run the risk of making it characterless. If you are using neutrals in a content based decorated home this is not a problem but if you do not have the content pieces or the talent pal has than it is as likely to not impress a buyer as the one with a purple bath. We should live true to our selves not a possible buyer but I eat every meal in the dining room on granny's china in a very colorful home. I live only for today, for tomorrow has never come for many I know. If you love a neutral palette than it is wonderful and often a work of beauty but to choose for a possible resale lacks truth and sole I think.

We haven't moved in 11 years. I'm glad I chose a bright pink for my daughter's room and if I need to make it beige come resale time, I would rather do that than live in a completely neutral house.

While building my house I was told I was making a huge mistake because we did not put in a fireplace *In South Texas mind you* because nobody would want to buy a house with no fireplace. Frankly I just told them that it was *my* house and I was not building it for someone else and if anything was going to hurt me on resale (God forbid cause I never plan on moving) it was my house is Universal Design (ADA) and that thus far hasn't quite caught on to the masses yet. It in my opinion is a well thought out and designed house that we can live in hopefully forever!
Moral of my story here, live your life for you for today and worry about tomorrow when it comes.

Whenever I see a mag cover promising colour ("The Colour Issue!", "How to add Colour to Your Home!"), The rooms are invariably white with colourful pillows or drapes, maybe a bright painted floor or door. I never learn though. I'm always painting walls a different colour.

I agree with suero and the others that are in their home to live as they wish for today. Everyone has their own ideas as to how to make a home their own. I am very content based, as pal stated. But to have those contents shown to their best advantage I have a number of my rooms in saturated jewel tones. I hired all of the painting out and it was definitely worth it. It has been 9 yrs for some of the rooms and 6 for the others. I never stop enjoying the feelings each room evokes when I enter.

I have no idea how long I will be on earth let alone in this house. It never occurred to me to think of resale when I started decorating 9 yrs ago. I am happy here and live each day as it comes. The ability to swap rooms is something I too can do because of the colors that are present in all of the Persian rugs and the Native American art. The pics below are from last year. The DR is now the MR and the MR is the DR. All we did was slide the rug and the furniture across the hall and we had all new rooms. I will do it again as the spirit moves me. As I write this I smile...my spirit is ALL that is moving.

Here is a sample of some of the rooms:

Dining Room ( last year):

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Kitchen :

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Morning Room ( last year):

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Master Bedroom:

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DR ( this year)

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another view:

{{!gwi}}

I wonder if this is a generational thing. We have never purchased or lived in a home with an eye toward resale. In fact, our first two homes had the ugliest kitchens you ever saw, but we purchased because of price, location, and potential. But we didn't have HGTV putting the fear into us that we needed to live in a beige, neutral undated world.

I remember a story my mom recounted to me on several occasions to make sure I enjoyed the beautiful things in life. My cousin had a closet full of beautiful, frilly dresses (this was the 50's), but her mother never let her wear them for fear of ruining them. In fact, my mother had even asked her why she never let her wear them because we were the same age and my mother always dressed me (and my doll in matching) in dresses, crinolines, and frilly socks.

One day, she complained of a headache, went to bed, and died a few hours of meningitis at the age of 3. Her mother buried her in one of those beautiful dresses.

I like to enjoy my home and do to it what I wish, and wear my pretty dresses. I'm not going to live with so-so colors because it might cost me a few thousand to repaint MAYBE NEVER? To please that phantom person who will probably buy my home for reasons I won't even know? If one enjoys neutrals, that's fine. Just don't do it for "resale". "Resale" will never again be what it was 5 years ago.
Dee

One way to paint with resale in mind and still have color in rooms is to paint the most difficult ones in colors considered "acceptable" for your market and to reserve the color you want for easier-to-paint rooms. As an example, our master bedroom has a beamed ceiling, with the beams set into the walls. That means that there are three wall surfaces per beam requiring cutting in. Sixteen long beams, including one at each end of the room running across the length. This room had been an uninteresting white, and I redid it in a neutral mushroom color. For the cutting in required around the beams -- white to mushroom means two coats, so that worked out to the equivalent of 64 beams to meticulously paint around. Part of the wall in which five or six beams were set was on the other side of an open stairwell. So, regardless of what other colors I might conceivably have envisioned this room, there was no way it was going to be anything other than a classic, warm neutral!

I do agree with posters who argue for painting for yourself. I knew within weeks of moving into our former house that it was a huge, huge mistake. Roughly 18 years later, we moved. The whole time, I lived with neutrals that weren't particularly interesting because every year I thought: THIS is the year in which we move.

But are neutral rooms always necessary for resale? Someone bought an 18th C. stone house on the river with the intention of reselling. I saw it under its previous owner and was charmed by its quirks and character. The new owner has certainly improved it both structurally and mechanically, and floors are new, as is the paint job. Alas, there is absolutely no charm left. Every wall is an off white, all the trim is white...the owner may have thought potential buyers would easily envision their own things in these spaces, but I thought that every room required a new paint job. Isn't that back to square one?

By contrast, one of the best real estate agents in the area lived near our former house. She sold her house very quickly. The outside was purple, with deep lavender trim. I recall a dark red room, or maybe it was orange. Another room was a bright green or bright blue....Granted, the town is one in which people want to live, not too many places come on the market, and the market itself was very different. But still...orange...blue...in fact, there may not have been a single neutral room in the place. I think the sunroom was a dark green.

If you crave color but think you might want to move, just remember, too: with some exceptions, painting doesn't take very long.

Life is too short and too much fun to worry about most things, especially resale, it has never, ever entered the equation for me, I decorate for me and my family, not some mythical future buyer. But I also wear my "good" jewelry, use the good serving pieces, the real silver (even if it's not polished, and believe me, it rarely is) and the vintage wine glasses, and if they break, who cares? We try like hell to enjoy things while we have them, because as trailrunner wisely states, who knows how long any of us has on Earth, and I certainly don't want to die with my jewelry unworn and lonely in the safe deposit box, the silver all nicely polished and unused in a drawer, the wine glasses unchipped or those funky new boots pristine and untouched by mud.

sandyponder