Flat white walls. Glossy white doors. White trim. Sometimes it's called "antique white", or "Navajo white" but it's always white. This is the interior color your new (production) home is generally painted by most builders. The mental images those months of dreaming produced as you sat on the sofa of the model home somehow got your juices going, thinking about the decorating possibilities. As well it should; model homes are designed to help you think about the "what ifs" but do little to prepare you for the reality of your starkly white, undecorated home.

Many builders' design centers now offer custom paint possibilities, permitting you to use some upgrade dollars or builder incentive money to give your new home some of the latest in wall hues for your own décor. If they don't, and you are about to close escrow on your new home, why not consider giving yourself a little time before your move-in to paint before you complicate matters with furniture and accessories?

One of the best reasons to paint is not just the abhorrence of an entirely white home, it's the fairly common fact that new homebuilders are not the greatest at high quality interior paint jobs, usually covering the walls with a bare minimum of paint over newly textured surfaces. How can you tell the paint is so thin? Try applying another color on top of it, and you'll see your walls soak up the paint like a sponge! (If your homebuilder is a cut apart from most, please disregard this generalization). I liken the paint job on a new home to the bare minimum of landscaping most builders throw in on the deal. Sod, sprinklers, bark beds and one or two trees with some tiny bushes. It's there to get you started, but it is always hoped that you will expand on the original idea.

What's so great about the current decorating trends is that custom paint jobs are definitely "in" once again. Decorative wallpaper notwithstanding, creative wall and trim paint can be one of the most enduring and inexpensive ways, per square foot, to enhance your new home. And changing the color is easy (nothing to strip) when tastes change. Take a look at the decorating jobs in many model homes. There is a subtlety of wall color. It doesn't usually scream out at you, but it's definitely there, creating a backdrop to the model home furniture and accessories.

Although there are all variety of taupes, creams, tans, off-whites, and pale pastels, now all the rage seems to be darker, richer colors and accent wall colors as well, going a shade darker or lighter on some walls to give a room more interest and depth. Shades of khaki, olives and rusts are infiltrating walls everywhere. Trim colors can be beige or tan next to these darker tones, eliminating the need for starkly white doors everywhere. Oftentimes ceilings and trim are left white, or lighter in color, with three or more varieties of the same color being used throughout a house. (Though it all sounds so novel, just pick up a circa 1950's decorating book at a garage sale and take a look at the pictures within. We're not so clever after all.)

Your new home generally comes with latex flat-painted walls and glossy trim, but you need not adhere to these paint finishes when re-painting. You can instead opt for satin, to eggshell to high gloss for any room, depending on your calculations of light exposure (high gloss may get on your nerves if the room receives a lot of sunlight), wear and tear washability, and individual taste.

Talk to your paint professional about their own brands' characteristics, however, and don't take the names for these finishes literally. A "high gloss" for some manufacturers may translate into a semi-gloss or satin finish when applied, leaving you less than satisfied with the effect. Make the investment in a quart of each of your most likely colors and finishes and try them out on a wall of your choice. And don't forget to put some near cabinet and floor colors to check their tones when you make your final choice. Some "tans" have pink, grey, green or even blue overtones that looked great on a little swatch of paper but look absolutely different on your wall when the sun hits it.

When selecting your final colors I have learned (from a recent paint decision-making process of my own) that the key word is patience. You'll find that your original idea of paint colors may change once you do the litmus test described above. And as well intentioned as you may be to re-paint the new house when the dust settles, just having those heavy pieces of furniture and perfectly positioned pictures in place may find you procrastinating well beyond your original time frame.

But don't take my word for it. Call a few painting contractors and ask them how much less their bids would be without furniture moving and covering added in. I think you'll find that doing it now, even though you are beside yourself with excitement to occupy that new home, may be the best time to "say it with color."

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Published: November 29, 1999

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A veteran of the real estate and homebuilding industries since 1986, Dena Kouremetis first joined Realty Times as a new homes writer in 1998. Since then, she has authored four books, written consumer columns on new homes issues for websites and newspapers all across the country, contributed to builder trade magazines, appeared as a guest expert on several radio shows and even created a ten-chapter podcast for LendingTree.com’s homebuilder website, iNest.com, now available on iTunes, entitled Uncharted Waters; Navigating the Purchase of a New Production Home. Kouremetis recently joined her local Folsom, CA Coldwell Banker office as a broker associate while continuing to write for the real estate industry. For the past three years, she has been training real estate agents for both the resale and new homes industries, putting her experience, research expertise and gift of expression to work to help others entering the business.