When painting your home office, your favorite color may sound like a good idea at first. After all, you may be spending hours at a time in there, day after day. The walls should be a color you’ll enjoy looking at, right?

Some colors are better for promoting productivity, creativity, fostering relationships between you and your clients, and allowing you to stay in there for hours without getting too restless to work.

Blue: According to Sherwin-Williams, the best office color is blue, but it should be tempered with red accents in order to prevent the room from becoming too soothing. The red will provide a boost in motivation without overpowering the room.

Brown: Think Big Partners says brown is soothing, but in a way that makes workers comfortable enough to work without being so relaxing it decreases productivity. Try it in your home office if you love neutrals. Choosing accent colors will be almost effortless.

Orange: This is a very stimulating shade, so unless you’re always interacting with others over the phone or bringing clients into your office for engaging, upbeat conversations and sales pitches, it may be too much for a whole room.

Try an accent wall or bathe the walls in a muted terra cotta shade in that case. Think Big Partners also recommends a pale orange if you’d like to paint the walls orange.

White: There’s conflicting information about white walls in an office. Sherwin-Williams reports that workers made more errors in an office with white walls at first, but over time the white walls didn’t influence their performance anymore. Reliable Plant, however, suggests that the absence of color will help you focus when you’re sitting at your desk.

If you need to stay calm more than rev up your energy levels, choose a soothing color like blue. If you could use more energy and enthusiasm in your work, try orange. Take your greatest need at work and paint the walls accordingly, then use colors from the opposite end of the spectrum (orange accents in a blue room, for example), to create more balance.

Photo credit: Houzz, Décor Pad, Better Homes and Gardens, and House to Home

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