Whole house paint colors we used in our first flip

Renovating a house is so exciting for me as well as choosing the paint colors for the whole house!

vision for this house

When renovating with the purpose of reselling decisions such as choosing paint colors you might follow a different thinking process than usual. If you renovate for yourself you know what you like, you know what you don’t like, and the vision you want to accomplish. But when renovation for a potential buyer… you have no idea what the style of the people wanting to buy a house is.

So the most flippers approach is go all neutral and use the most affordable materials. There’s nothing bad in that, but the result is a house without personality. Sometimes even a house that had character but was stripped of it during renovation.

My husband and I did not want to do that, but wanted to make it appealing to a larger percentage of buyers but keep or add character to the house. Our purpose is to renovate like we would do it for our own family and be proud of the result at the end.

So we decided to go with a neutral color pallet and just a few touches of colors to add some character.

whole house colors

wall color

For the walls I have previously used Alabaster by SW in our rent and Whitetail by SW in our current home. I like the warmth of both, but for the flip I wanted to try something new. A friend recommended Spare White by SW and we went for it.

This color is a cool white compared to Alabaster and Whitetail that are warm whites with yellow-beige undertones. Spare White has a grey undertone. In the flip house it reads a little bit green, probably because of all the trees surrounding the house that reflect on the walls.

I love how it complements and balances the warm wood floors.

If you take a close look at the pictures, you notice that the ceilings are a different white. The painter we hired used regular ceiling paint from SW without any tint.

trim color

The trim color we chose is Pure White by SW. The color is a clean and crisp white that works great for trims. We used Pure White on trims, windows and doors. The house looked bright and clean after everything was painted.

The wall and trim color worked great with the white kitchen cabinets and with the Ceramic Bright White Subway Tile.

the blue room

One of the rooms had wood paneling all around and old vinyl floors. We didn’t want to take all that paneling down and add extra work. So we decided to transform this space into a moody study/third bedroom.

I don’t want you to think renovations are all smooth sail…we made mistakes and there are a lot of learning lessons in this story.

One mistake was that I chose a paint color for this room without testing it! We got notice from the painter that they need the paint colors right away. Although I know I wanted a dark blue in this room, I skipped the sampling step and picked a color at 11pm at night from the color fan. The color I chose was Salty Dog by SW.

I thought I had it right until I went to check on the progress. It was obvious it was not the right color for what we wanted to achieve. It looked perfect on a small swatch but when on the wall it looked juvenile and too saturated.

On top of that, the painters painted the trim white instead of the same color and it did not look great. The color was too inky blue, but mostly too bright and suited for a kids room. Also, the second (or third) mistake was doing a satin finish. You could see every imperfection in the old paneling.

I went back to the store and selected a few more options. Our local SW did not have the paint we needed in eggshell so I tried some Behr colors and decided on Starless Night in eggshell.

We repainted the room ourselves to save money and we were finally happy with the color. This navy blue has a grey undertone and it creates a timeless calming space. It looked dull on the swatch but perfect when painted on four walls.

soft green in the bathroom

In the bathroom I wanted to add a bit of character on a low budget. So we used a panel that looks like shiplap and installed it vertically on the vanity wall.

We painted the panel the color Sea Salt by SW and this was a win from the start. I love the softness and interest it adds to the bathroom, without overpowering the space.

pop of color on the fireplace mantel

The living room looked amazing with the custom mantel my husband built. The shape was amazing and I wanted it to stand out against the white walls.

I first tried a leftover paint from our house called Gossamer Veil by SW. I wore about the paint choice for the trim in our home here.

Let’s just say it did not work at all. The gray/green undertone in the wall color next to the violet undertones in Gossamer Veil was a big no-no.

The color I chose is Unusual Gray by SW. It looks gray on he swatch but has green undertones. In the living room it reads more green than gray in my opinion. It seems to be a very unpredictable color hence the name “unusual” which should be a great hint to sample it in your space.

Conclusion… Do not trust colors before trying them in your space!

whole house paint colors

Here are all the colors we used in the interior of our first flip.

Pin it for later if you like how it all came out.

Thanks for being here!