Image via Wikipedia
Most real-estate experts recommend a neutral palette when selling a home. Basic colors achieve several goals. They allow the buyer to more easily imagine their own belongings in the space without the need to see through the owner’s sense of style. Whites and beiges make rooms seem larger by capturing more light, and lighter rooms appear cleaner and free from defects compared to dark spaces.
Of course, no one wants to live their entire life in a complete wash of white. If you plan on living in the home for five years or less, it may be smart to leave the colors alone. However, you’ll need to repaint after about five years regardless of your cleaning habits. Long-term homeowners should choose colors that make their home feel like a real home and worry about pleasing a new buyer when the time comes. Some homeowners now choose to gift their buyer with a redecorating allowance instead of repainting. This allows the new owners to pick their own colors in the first place instead of wasting that fresh coat of white paint.
In the past, decorators avoided dark colors because they were hard to cover with lighter tones when the time came to sell the home. However, new one-coat paints and heavy-duty primers have made this task a little easier. Even if you paint a wall jet black, you can usually turn it back to pristine white with as few as two coats of paint. In the meantime, you’ve enjoyed a color that truly speaks to your inner self.
