Unexpected ways to use paint in your new build home

Congratulations, you’ve got the keys to your brand new home – now the fun begins! A new build home is a perfect blank canvas, ready for you to add your individual style and bring your dream design ideas to life. Here are some eye-catching and unexpected ways to use paint in your home to give it its very first personality.

Brighten up a corner

With just a relatively small amount of paint, you can make a corner of your home into a fabulous feature. Paint a wide colour block, or get creative with a triangle, semicircle, or geometric shape to draw attention to a corner, and create a bold backdrop for a desk, armchair, lamp, or another piece of statement furniture.

This is a great way to introduce impactful colour into your home without committing to a full paint job, not to mention that it’s much quicker to do!

Create a ‘zone’

In large or open-plan rooms where you have a lot of wall space, you can use paint as a visual device to divide the room or create a ‘zone’ for a designated use. For example, a colour change between two areas, or a block of colour on the wall behind a piece of furniture, can all make a room feel more purposeful and cohesive.

In open-plan spaces, a different paint colour can be used to distinguish certain areas, such as the kitchen and dining spaces, or to add cosiness to the living or family area. Alternatively, a wide stripe of colour taken up to – or even partly onto – the ceiling, a tall arch, or a large circle can be placed behind a desk, sofa, or shelves, or a bed as an alternative to a traditional headboard.

The ceiling’s the limit

Bold-coloured ceilings are a contemporary interior trend that can completely transform the look and feel of a room, even if you leave the walls white. Darker colours give the illusion of bringing the ceiling ‘closer’ and the room feeling smaller, which can be a desirable effect in large rooms, or where you want to add a bit of cosiness – such as in a bedroom.

Alternatively, use a bright hue or a pastel shade on the ceiling to retain the sense of space, whilst drawing the eye upward. A cheerful sunshine yellow would be perfect in a kids’ room, while a pretty blush pink will add soft colour to a new bathroom or en suite.

Be bold with a border

Who said that borders have to be straight lines? Scallops, waves, zig zags, stripes, and even freeform shapes like flowing lines and jagged edges can be used to transition your paintwork from crisp white to colour.

A horizontal border, taken to approximately 2/3 of the height of the room, adds the illusion of extra height, but you could use them vertically or even diagonally. It’s your home, so have fun with it! If you’re stuck for inspiration, look to your soft furnishings, artwork, or even ceramics and ornaments, for patterns or shapes that you can replicate with paint.