how to choose a dining room wall paint color

When it comes to making food taste good, our mind plays as big a role as our mouth! Imagine if your next steak were blue! Our minds lock in memories of how colors taste… so fresh, abundant or organic will colors will bring out those qualities in our room moods and food!

A room painted anything but white casts a colored light on our food. So the best wall paint colors enhance food’s natural color. In fact, color can increase or decrease our appetite. (Filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock's allegedly used blue light in his dining room interior, a trick that cast a grayish haze over the food and made his guests qweezy!)

The warm side of the paint color wheel is most popular for dining room interior design… since most of the foods we eat have a ripe, sun-washed warmth and we eat them warmed up. That makes oranges, yellows and warm neutral paint colors ideal, especially earthy, organic tones that evoke spices, fresh bread, pasta, fall vegetables and well-cooked meals. Browns inspired by café au lait and chocolate work well in contemporary rooms.

Reds with a yellow cast (tomato) rather than a blue cast (raspberry) are more appetizing. Deep wine and burgundy hues work well in traditional dining rooms.

To complement warm wood tones, green is a good choice. Choose a green hue that simulates food… duller rather than brighter and with yellow (rather than blue) undertones.

Few colors are as chic as white, but as a dining room wall color, it can look stark. Food companies have long struggled with white packaging—it looks tasteless… the same problem can occur in a white dining room!

On the cool side of the color wheel, blues and purples work best for dishes or placemats rather than wall paint colors, unless dark or dull. They offer a good contrast against warm food colors.

As a rule, the brighter the color, the more efficient rather than relaxed it makes us. Fast food restaurants used bright orange for years because it’s friendly, makes us chew faster and vacate our table quicker! But orange is an efficient color only when it’s bright; muted oranges feel appetizing and warm (see dining room picture above,Cross Island by Ashley Furniture). So reserve bright hues for a modern chairs reakfast table or other modern kitchen color ideas, at best!

Still not sure which wall paint color to choose? Pick the hue of your favorite food—you’ll instantly love it!