The Importance of Painting Your Home

Written by Jeremy Festa - Key Client Manager at Rochele Painting

This will be nothing new for some, but hopefully a stark reminder for us all…

“Take painting seriously!”

It can be quite difficult to make painting your home seem cool or aspirational. If you think about our colloquial term for boredom, we often say it is “like watching paint dry.” The negative connotations associated with this idiom surround the extended time it takes for paint to dry, but there can also be the perceived monotony of applying paint. However, in these modern times of meditation and mindfulness, we are finding more and more people drawn to the therapeutic aspect of methodically applying paint to all sorts of surfaces. This is something we all have in common.

Whether we like to admit it or not, something that is cool… is history and science, so let’s have a little look at painting through those lenses.

The Human History Lens

Even before we were building our shelters, we were decorating our surroundings. Most people would be familiar with ancient cave paintings. It is prevalent in most cultures around the world. Here in Australia, we have numerous locations of indigenous rock art that are truly mind-blowing. John Green’s “The Anthropocene Reviewed” is a great read and sheds light on the importance of palaeolithic cave and rock paintings. Green describes the discovery of the Lascaux Cave paintings as a decorative necessity, “as if art isn’t optional for humans.” When it comes to painting our dwellings in both ancient and modern times, one could easily argue it transcends the full spectrum of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs touching on shelter and safety, through to belonging and esteem. Anyone who has small children can attest to the primal urge they have to decorate the walls of their home with crayons or worse. Something so widespread that paint manufacturers have developed products to combat its occurrence. It is these examples that make, whatever structure provides us shelter, our home.

Many people will be familiar with aesthetically pleasing and overly colourful homes at touristy locales around the world, think Chefchaouen, Havana, Jaipur or Cinque Terra. Alternatively, they could be entirely tonal, such as Santorini. Either way, one can’t complain too much if they are locked-in to an Instagram algorithm exploring #travel to be constantly slammed by gorgeous imagery of historical holiday destinations. These are just a few examples of how and why people use paint to brighten their homes and lives.

When we look through the historical lens at one’s home, there are several famous sayings that spring to mind, such as “Home Sweet Home,” “There’s no place like home” and “for a man’s house is his castle.” Surprisingly, and chronologically speaking, it is “Home is where the heart is” that started the trend, and is a saying generally credited to Gaius Plinius Secundus (a.k.a. Pliny the Elder), a Roman naval commander who lived from 23 to 79 A.D. The point being, is our home is important, and whatever substrate it is made out of, we paint it.

The Scientific Lens

For far too long our scientific understanding, application and manipulation of our surroundings has been focussed on everything except for our homes. We hear about the science involved in architecture, and the thoughtfulness involved in the design of our built environment. However, the vast majority of this attention is focussed on communal spaces, think, shopping centres, offices, schools and sports stadiums. Anyone who has walked into a kindergarten in the last 40 years, can attest to the colourful surroundings intended to encourage creative play and learning. Nevertheless, it is this knowledge and implementation that skews heavily towards the monetization garnered by the influence of behaviours on groups of people, for those keen on the subject matter, take a look at the Gruen Transfer. But we want to change all of this, we want to talk about your home.

Whether your abode, is a unit, townhouse or the quintessential Queenslander, it is, generally speaking, your largest asset. It is where we exist, where we relax, nowadays work, where we do all our creative thinking and strategic planning. Our home is where we eat, sleep, bathe repeat. Where we entertain friends and family. Where we celebrate. Where we escape. The impact of your primary residence, on your mental health and wellbeing is significant. So much so, that even Dulux pivoted their entire brand purpose from selling tins of paint to selling “tins of optimism.” A shift that saw them grow exponentially in every market.

Rochele Painting has 49 years of experience in painting South-East Queensland. We have grown consistently, by providing a Prompt and Professional painting service, from the cowboy industry of the ’80s and ‘90s to the highly competitive and specialised suite of trade services provided today. We have seen trends come and go, then come back around again. But one thing that hasn’t happened, is ensuring our clients know, that painting your home is tremendously important. The more consumer education the industry provides as a whole, the more we can improve people’s lives. Painting will improve your life, and the lives of those around you. You will be happier; it will improve your performance at work and at play.