Paint your Hawaii house un-neutral to sell it!

Most people will tell you to paint your house "neutral colors" before you sell it, but I think you should reconsider. Neutral to most people means off white, which makes most houses seem very stark and uninteresting. If you're going to sell your house, I suggest you paint some rooms a nice soothing color that makes the trim stand out.

I like this green living room as an example. The furniture isn't anything special, just a couch and lamps, table, etc. But the nice soothing green paint really makes the white ceiling and crown molding stand out. Also notice the door is black. Nice contrast. Neutral colors in this room would make it boring to most buyers, who have seen a couch and lamps before.





You can do something similar in your kitchen. You don't want the kitchen to feel too cold or stark, Repainting it something nice like this light brown can be a great way to warm up the room.



When it's time to sell your Oahu house, you might even want to have me come over and suggest some colors for you. Colors that appeal to most buyers are usually greens, blues, browns, yellows. Stay away from red, purple, and black. Black is ok for trim, but not for walls. You're not selling a haunted house are you?

As for the outside, you might want to try what we did. We went to a new home tract in Hawaii Kai and asked the association manager for the color codes on some of the new houses they were building. The big builders spend big money on designers that choose all their colors, so we figured we would just use something that they chose, something we liked. So our house has about 5 colors inside and a nice light brown outside. Very modern looking colors, but also very soothing.

So take my tip, don't paint your house off white. Please.