[danso]

But...why aren't most homes painted red, inside and out? Homes have existed for as long as barns. And while many people might want to splurge more for their home, it seems we should still see a relatively high number of red paint schemes in cheaper homes

[DanBC]

Because homes are built out of different materials. Stone houses get whitewashed. White wash is a very thin plaster - lime, salt, water, sometimes molasses.

One Indian town - Jaipur - has pink houses. This is because of the local stone, and because they painted everything pink when Prince Albert went to visit. It's pink! (http://www.sherwin-williams.com/homeowners/color/find-and-ex...)

(http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jaipur_city_palace_in...)

[dragonwriter]

> But...why aren't most homes painted red, inside and out? Homes have existed for as long as barns. And while many people might want to splurge more for their home, it seems we should still see a relatively high number of red paint schemes in cheaper homes

There are psychological impacts of color schemes which make heavy use of it undesirable for dwellings (its also why it is frequently used in fast food restaurants, because its gets people out the door faster.)

[anigbrowl]

That seems too pat an explanation; I've sen a lot of very nice red rooms, and in other cultures it has more positive associations than in the Anglosphere. Also, how you react to color depends on the saturation as well as the hue.

In any case, this doesn't answer the question of why more people don't (or historically didn't) paint the outside of their houses red.

[randomdata]

Perhaps because houses are often made of materials that are not wood? Stone and brick homes are almost never painted, thus setting a theme for homes that deviates from red. Houses are also rather small in comparison to barns. It could just be a matter of being able to afford other options at the smaller scale.

[nikatwork]

>its also why it is frequently used in fast food restaurants, because its gets people out the door faster

In design courses I was always taught that red and yellow are psychologically associated with hunger/food and this is why most fast food branding uses them [1]. I haven't seen any actual science behind this, it's always presented as fact.

I have personally encountered the color black being linked to death/unluckiness in Asia, as a new franchise of a major eCommerce company insisted I make their website's background white, instead of black like every other country's.

[1] http://www.colorschemer.com/blog/2007/07/17/why-food-compani...

[wisty]

> I have personally encountered the color black being linked to death/unluckiness in Asia, as a new franchise of a major eCommerce company insisted I make their website's background white, instead of black like every other country's.

Funnily enough, in Asia white is also linked to death or morning. Thus the ban on white t-shirts in some parts of China this month.