Color – a designer’s quickest trick – a few brush strokes and, like magic, a room is transformed from dingy to bright. Designers use color to maximize natural light, reflect off surfaces to accent light, and to add playful tones to brighten up a winter’s room.

Reno interior designers share four of these tricks of light with NevadaHome

1. Use natural light. Laurie Nissen-Miller, interior designer and owner of The Interior Zone of Reno, says, “Watch how the natural light falls against your surfaces throughout the course of the day. Paint the walls that don’t get much natural light a lighter shade. This creates the appearance of a more expansive space.”

2. Tint a colorful ceiling. Placing lighter colors higher than darker tones makes a space seem larger and taller. But Kadie Ramaklus, interior designer for Domus Design Group of Reno, and Nissen-Miller both stress that ceilings don’t need to be white to reflect light. Choosing a lighter tint for a ceiling, such as a pale blue, works just as well as white. It pushes the ceiling up and away, as well as gives the impression of a lighter room. This technique can be used for small spaces such as kitchen nooks or bathrooms, as well as large.

3. Combine colors. Ramaklus explains: “It’s important to understand the gradients of color before making your selection. Tints are created by adding white to the color, tones by adding gray, and shades by adding black.” A tint lightens up a room because it reflects more light. Find your favorite colors; then, using a color wheel, select complementary color combinations. And from there, tint, tone, and shade for your own unique combination

4. Use specialized finishes. Charlene Azucena, interior designer for Ethan Allen Interiors of Reno, suggests, “Use a glaze over paneling. This creates a whitewash effect while accenting the grain of the wood.”

Faux painting is also popular in the Reno area. Faux finishes can add light to a room in the same way that any kind of painting does – by using lighter colors to contrast with darker ones. For example, if you faux-paint a marble surface onto a lower wall (to give the effect of grounding the lower wall) then paint a lighter shade or tint on the upper wall, you open up the room; it benefits from the combination of light and dark, and from reflected light off the faux finish as well.

Enhancers – coatings that you paint over brick, stone, tile, cement and other surfaces – produce a wet look and reflect natural light. Enhancers don’t contain color themselves. The sheen they add to surfaces, though, creates a similar effect to that of mirrors – reflecting, and thus enhancing, light. Use this technique with fireplaces or tiled bathrooms. Glossy paints also reflect light. Says Azucena: “Any time you add gloss, you add light.

Susan M. Botich is a Minden-based freelance writer.