When summer starts heating up, most people immediately reach for the AC remote. However, there is a way to get around the heat without driving up your electricity bills. Your interior design, including paint color, can help lower the temperature inside your home.
It may not be worth it to repaint your whole house just to get some relief from a few hot days. However, if you live in a place that is prone to heatwaves and hot summers, here are a few shades that you should consider the next time that you are redecorating.
The Science Behind it
It seems silly to claim that paint color can affect a home’s interior temperature. However, it is based on scientific evidence surrounding light and color.
Lighter colors make rooms cooler and help you beat the heat because they reflect light, while darker colors absorb it. Since light also produces heat, this means that shades that absorb sunlight will also absorb the sun’s heat. That is why many people who live in hotter climates frequently wear white or other light colors.
Part of the reasoning is also psychological. Scientific studies have shown that different colors can affect people’s moods, particularly when it comes to interior design. Light colors and cooler shades such as blue have a calming effect, which can also calm the effects of hot temperatures. By contrast, warmer shades and darker colors have a stimulating effect.
Best Paint Shades for Beating the Heat
Lighter shades will help you keep your home cooler. Here are a few colors that you can choose from:
White: White is a classic option for maintaining a cool home. It reflects the most light and heat since it is the furthest away on the color spectrum from black. There is a reason that people who live in hot climates, such as Greece, tend to paint their houses white. However, if you find a white color scheme a bit boring, you have other choices that will still help you keep cool while drawing the eye.
Icy Blue: Blue is one of the cooling, soothing colors on the color spectrum and a few different shades work particularly well. Icy blue has green and gray undertones, which are also cooling colors. It both reflects light and works psychologically to cool people down.
Coral: Although warm colors such as red and orange tend to stimulate more than they soothe, coral still provides a cooling effect. It is a lighter shade of red that reflects most light and heat. Plus, its warm tones could remind you of a coral reef and create the illusion of a beach day, instead of a day spent sweltering inside your home.
These are a few colors that could help cool your home. Other suggestions include various shades of blue and green, lighter shades of pink and yellow, and the neutral stalwarts white and tan. In general, pick a color on the lighter end of the spectrum to maximize the cooling effect.