The age old advice from estate agents is that neutral is always the way to go. Neutral is inoffensive, clean and appeals to everybody.
But...do we WANT to appeal to absolutely everybody?!
People don't pay a premium for something that's just fine, we want people fall in lurve.
Colour can make you memorable and stop the scroll amongst hundreds of Spareroom or Airbnb listings...but colour can be scary!
Keep reading to find out how to achieve a colourful look, without ending up as a car crash
Selling points: high-end, vibrant and eye catching
Ideal for: serviced accommodation & HMOs
Colour Drenching is the easiest way to get more colour into your spaces, create a wow factor and keeps maintenance easy (as you've only got one paint colour to remember per room).
Now we've said that, it might actually be a landlord's best friend!
Colour drenching does what it says on the tin really, drenching your room with the same colour all over including trims, skirting, walls, even radiators and the ceiling. You might decide to go for the same shade everywhere, which you might find surprising, creates a calming, high-end feel, even if you go for bolder or deeper shades.
Now you might be thinking, all well and good if you've got 3m ceilings and oodles of space, BUT using one colour across everything actually tricks the eye into not seeing breaks in the room, e.g. where the wall meets the ceiling, which makes the room feel BIGGER.
It's also very effective in loft rooms where you might have various...jaunty...angles as it softens all of those contrasting lines.
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Furniture
Now, we've got two ways we can go with this, we can either play into your colour theme, and have fun with textures and tones, e.g. all tones of pink but using linen, velvet, different shades and patterns to all help bring interest.
OR we tie in a lot of the colour palette but go totally contrasting with one or two key pieces to make more of a statement...
Extra blending power...
Not keen on bulky storage overpowering your room or radiators and doorways standing out — drench them!
These examples from Lick shows just how powerful this technique can be at making large and sometimes ugly items fade into the background, and make rooms feel bigger than they are. So although it might seem scary, it's really key to go for it and paint everything when after the colour drenched look!
BUT it doesn't have to be so bold...
There's no rules on the colour you go for, it might be bold, dark, bright, pastel or even white!
Using an off-white or neutral can still create an equally impactful look when used all over, and is great when you want something else to be the main focus of the room, whether that's a feature fireplace, artwork or furniture.
Colour drenching makes your walls recede, letting everything else - from your furniture to your art - do the talking — Lick
But just so we're clear, using a 10L tub of trade white is not colour drenching! Going for a warmer neutral will instantly add depth and character and stop the place feeling too cold and...well landlordy.
Everything from the walls, panelling, skirting and ceiling is painted and softened, meaning you could add a feature contrasting artwork to add some boldness, or keep to this very calming space...we're getting snoozy already.
We hope we've inspired you to drench in a future property renovation project. Let us know what colours you've chosen via Instagram or email hello@themodernlandlord.co.uk.
