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annab6_gw

Wall colors and lighting, are there any tricks?

annab6
14 years ago

I am still searching for the right neutral color for our living room (also to be used in the adjacent den and the staircase). Never thought selecting a neutral color would be so hard.

I am finding that I like some colors in the daylight but absolutely don't like them in the evening with the interior lights on. Most of the time the problem is they become too yellowish or just too intense. And the other way around, those I like in the evening lighting I don't like during the day, they look too pale, washed out.

Of course I have seen this with other rooms too but since this area of the house is frequently used and at various times of day for family activities as well as for entertaining, I want to find that perfect color that would look right all the time.

One thing I am going to try is changing the light bulbs to "true-color" type of bulb where possible.

Are there any other tricks out there? Are certain colors more susceptible to light changes than other colors?

Comments (2)

  • PRO
    Lori A. Sawaya
    14 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    There have been some doozie color questions around here lately. Doozie, I say. It's like GW is the hosting vortex for the shifting color consciousness of all humanity. (I got my drama queen goin' on tonight) :~D

    Most of the time the problem is they become too yellowish or just too intense.
    ÂOne thing I am going to try is changing the light bulbs to "true-color" type of bulb where possible.

    About the yellow thing. Incandescent a.k.a. tungsten a.k.a. regular light bulbs do slant yellow or golden. But a bulb that tosses yellow light is not where the story starts or ends. There's more and I'll keep it short.

    Your eyeballs have an uneven distribution of red, green, and blue cones. The color we perceive as *yellow* tickles the red + green cones so yellow affects a big chunky piece of the color receptors in your eyeballs. The visual reaction to yellow color/yellow light is bigger, more robust compared to other colors. The red, green, and blue (RGB) color system that your eyes function *from* creates what they call a warm bias in human color perception. It's also why it feels like the more wall area a yellow paint color covers it grows more intense exponentially.

    Your eyeballs have a bias to yellow and warm colors in general and so do your light bulbs. Some people have a greater sensitity to that combined bias than others. It all depends, but generally speaking this is where "too much yellow" can come from in paint colors. It's also why graphic designers and website designers are very mindful of how, when, and where to use yellow -- graphic design is mostly to blame for how I've come to understand all this useless crap about color and eyeballs.

    The neodymium light blubs, like GE Reveal, changes things up in the quality of atmosphere in that they do not illuminate with the same kind of warm itensity like *normal*, tungsten light bulbs so the bias of yellow that exists, is ratcheted back so it's not so darn yellow and warm.

    Are there any other tricks out there? Are certain colors more susceptible to light changes than other colors?

    So now that you know what the problem is and where it comes from, you can explore options to deal with it. Intuitively you already came up with one option and that's first try different kinds of light bulbs and see what happens.

    Another is full spectrum or multi-pigmented paint colors. The advantage of FS and MP paints has been beat to death more times then I ever could have imagined on this forum. I don't have the energies to *go there* again but, truly, full spectrum paint could be a solution for you. FS and MP would, in a nutshell, be exactly what you asked, "Are certain colors more susceptible to light changes than other colors?". Answer is yes there are paint colors like that and they are called full spectrum and multi-pigmented. Brands like Citron, Donald Kaufmann, Ellen Kennon and C2.

    There are also some *regular* paint colors that are more susceptible to light changes than others. The average color collection consists of over 3,000 colors. Fishing them out, discovering which paint colors shift and change gracefully is like finding a needle in a haystack. The brands that exlusively philosophize color from a "shifting" point of view simplifies color options for the consumers of color.

    Hope that helps some.

  • threedgrad
    14 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Now Anna, do you have a picture of the room?

    I do agree that a full spectrum paint with GE reveal bulbs would help you a lot.

    For a really good neutral I like Ellen Kennon's Taupe. Ellen calls it the perfect neutral. I used it in the last rental house in the kitchen and the dining room. It was a very good color, nice during both the day and night, not too pink or gray or yellow. Full Spectrum paints do not add black to a paint.

    Here are some pics of the Taupe.

    Left wall is Taupe, short wall is EK Adobe with some Taupe added.

    EK Taupe at night

    I like this color so much that I will be using it again in this rental house once I get a job and I can afford to buy the paint and brushes.

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