Cool-Tone House Colours for Hot Climates: Which Shades Help

Which cool-tone house colours make a home look cool?

The cool-tone house colours that make a home look cool in a hot climate are pale shades of blue, green, blue-grey and blue-white. These shades make rooms feel airy and easy on the eye. If the question is which shade keeps a wall cooler in fact, the answer lies in how pale the colour is, more than in its tone. Pale colours reflect more sunlight than dark ones, so pale blue helps with heat and navy does not. This guide is part of the full set of house painting and colour guides from Phuket Pro Painters.

In Phuket, where the weather is hot and humid all year, many owners look for colours that make a home more comfortable without running the air conditioning all day. Understanding that tone works on how a room feels, while lightness works on heat, helps you choose a colour that meets the real aim.

What is a cool tone, and how does a cool tone differ from a warm one?

Cool tones are colours built on blue, green or blue-violet. They feel calm and clean and appear to recede from the eye, so a room painted in a cool tone looks larger than the room really is. Warm tones are built on yellow, orange, red or brown, and feel cosy and close.

Neutrals such as white and grey also come in cool and warm versions. Blue-white and blue-grey sit on the cool side; off-white and brown-grey sit on the warm side. A simple way to tell is to hold the sample card against a sheet of plain white paper.

How does each group of cool shades feel, and where does each one suit?

Slightly muted shades, meaning shades with a little grey in them, are easier to use than strong bright ones. A muted shade is comfortable to live with for years and goes with a wide range of furniture.

Do cool tones really make a house cooler, or does the house only look cooler?

Two different things need to be kept apart.

How do cool tones change the way a room feels?

Blues and greens make the mind think of water, sky and the shade of trees. A room painted in a cool tone therefore feels cooler than a room in orange or red, even at the same air temperature. The effect is one of perception, and perception has real value for the comfort of the people living in the house.

What decides how much heat a wall absorbs?

An exterior wall heats up because the surface absorbs energy from sunlight. Pale colours reflect much of that light and dark colours absorb much of it, whether the tone is cool or warm. A pale cream wall, which is a warm tone, therefore stays cooler than a navy wall, which is a cool tone. If the aim is to cut the heat entering the house, choose a pale shade first.

Some exterior paints have added heat-reflecting properties. For the level of reflection of each product, rely on what the paint manufacturer states on the label. Paint is also only one factor among several: roof insulation, eaves, shade trees and ventilation all affect the temperature indoors.

How do you use cool tones inside the house?

Rooms that take afternoon sun and feel hot and stuffy gain the most from cool tones, which offset the orange light of the afternoon. Bedrooms take a pale muted blue or grey-green. Bathrooms take pale blue or sea green beside white sanitary ware. Living rooms take a pale blue-grey or blue-white as the background, with colour added through furnishings.

Rooms with little natural light, such as a room whose window faces the wall of the house next door, need care with very grey cool tones, which look gloomy and cold there. Choose a lighter shade or use warm-white lighting. When you are ready to start, the steps of the job are set out on the interior painting service for houses and condos page.

How do you use cool tones on the outside of a house in Phuket?

Phuket's daytime sun makes every shade look paler and more washed out than on the sample card, so a very pale blue can look almost white. If you want the wall to read clearly as blue or green, choose one step darker than the shade you like, but not so dark that the wall becomes a heat-absorbing dark colour.

Houses near the sea and houses with swimming pools pick up extra blue reflected light, which makes blue tones look brighter still. Houses surrounded by trees pick up green reflected light, which helps a grey-green look settled but can make a pale blue look greenish.

Pale cool-tone exterior walls show algae and rain marks easily. Use an exterior paint that resists mould and algae, and plan to wash the walls from time to time. The scope of work is described on the exterior house painting service page.

How do you pair cool tones with other colours?

A house in nothing but cool tones can look hard and distant. These pairings are widely used.

• Pale blue with white gives a seaside-house feel, clean and bright.
• Grey-green with natural timber gives the feel of a resort in a garden.
• Blue-grey with white and black frames gives a modern feel.
• Blue-white with a sea-green feature wall gives a room a focal point while staying cool on the eye.

Adding a little warm material, such as timber, rattan or sand-coloured fabric, makes a cool-tone home more welcoming.

How do you test cool tones before painting?

1. Choose two or three shades you like, including one lighter and one darker than the shade you have in mind.
2. Paint large sample patches on the real wall, on a side that takes sun and on a side in shade.
3. Wait until the paint is fully dry, then look in morning light, afternoon light and lamplight at night.
4. Compare the patches with the floor, the ceiling and the main furniture.
5. Choose the shade that still looks right at the time of day when the room is used most.

Owners who are still undecided between cool tones and another direction can work through the guide to deciding what colour to paint a house. Once the interior colours are chosen, the guide on how many days to wait after painting before moving in helps with planning the move.

Do cool tones cost more than other colours?

The tone itself makes little difference to the cost of painting. What matters is the paint grade, the area, the condition of the walls and the number of coats. A change from an existing dark colour to a pale cool tone may need an extra coat to cover the old colour fully. Estimated rates are on the painting prices in Phuket page.