In Defence of Colour: Why Our Buildings Need More Joy

There’s a house in my town that used to be beige. Not an offensive beige- just the quiet, apologetic kind that fades into the background and makes no demands on your attention. It sat at a busy intersection, just another structure in a streetscape full of neutrality. People passed by without noticing it. I probably did, too.

Then someone painted it blue.

Not a timid blue. A bold, deep, cheerful blue, the kind you’d expect to see in a Mediterranean fishing village or a Nova Scotian harbour. The kind of colour that makes you smile without really knowing why.

And something happened.

Suddenly, people started noticing the house. They looked twice. They pointed it out to their kids. You could see the shape of the building more clearly, including its unique structure, now clearly revealed as a trapezoid, contoured to the shape of its lot. What had once looked like a flat box now had dimension, personality, presence. The architecture revealed itself. And the corner, once dreary and forgettable, became a kind of landmark. A spark of joy.

That house reminded me: colour isn’t just decoration. It’s identity. Its place-making. It’s an act of generosity.

The Tyranny of Tastefulness

For the past couple decades, a particular aesthetic has dominated our built environment: neutral, muted, minimal. You see it in new developments, commercial buildings, and home renovations alike. Greys, whites, taupes. "Timeless" palettes designed to offend no one and blend into anything.

But in trying to offend no one, we end up inspiring no one either. We strip our buildings of personality, history, and context. We forget that places are supposed to feel alive.

We’ve been taught, subtly and not-so-subtly, that colour is childish, messy, emotional. That “good taste” is beige. But look around the world, or back through history, and you’ll see the opposite: colour as culture. As signal. As pride. As beauty.

Houses or Homes?

Sometimes I wonder if part of our fear of colour, and really, our fear of individuality, is rooted in the way we’ve come to think about our homes. Not as places to live, but as assets. As real estate. As interchangeable units of housing stock.

When a house is an asset first, resale value becomes the measure of all things. And that means playing it safe. Universal appeal. Neutral tones. Surfaces that blend in, not stand out. We buy art at IKEA and fill our homes with knick-knacks from box stores, objects designed not to offend. Our interiors and exteriors start to look eerily similar. Our homes become staged, even when we’re living in them.

In that world, individual expression is almost a liability. Colour becomes risky. Specificity becomes dangerous. Because if your home looks like your home, it might not look like anyone else’s, and that could hurt the sale.

But a home is supposed to be more than an investment vehicle. It’s a place of memory, ritual, and rootedness. And part of what makes it yours, and makes a neighbourhood feel like somewhere, not anywhere, is that it reflects the people who live there.

Bringing back colour is, in a quiet way, a rebellion against the idea of homes as interchangeable. It’s a way of saying: I live here. This place matters.

The Gloom We Build Ourselves

There’s also, in much of the country, a very Canadian kind of dreariness, the long shoulder seasons where winter drags on and spring refuses to start. In places like Toronto or Ottawa, November seems to last for five months. The skies are grey. The streets are wet. The trees are bare. And in the middle of all that, we’ve somehow decided to build a world of grey stucco and brown brick and black-trimmed vinyl windows.

We’ve created a built environment that mirrors the dullest parts of our climate, and then we wonder why it feels depressing.

But colour, in these moments, isn’t frivolous. It’s medicine. A yellow door in March. A red window frame in April. These small bursts of pigment remind us that joy is still possible. That light is coming. That someone, somewhere, still believes in brightness.

We double our impoverishment when we choose buildings as grey as our skies. And we double our resilience when we fight back with colour.

Just look at St. John’s, Newfoundland, where row upon row of brightly painted houses - reds, greens, purples, oranges, line the steep hills above the harbour. Against the brooding rock and sea, those colours do more than pop. They lift spirits, build identity, and draw people in. The city’s palette has become part of its culture, a tourism draw, and a quiet act of defiance against its often-harsh environment. It’s a reminder that place-making and joy are allowed to coexist. That they should.

So, this is a small defence of colour. Not just for the sake of nostalgia or aesthetics, but for the health of our streets, the joy of our days, and the soul of our buildings. Let’s stop being afraid of making a statement. Let’s give our towns and cities back some texture, some contrast, some light.

And if you’re thinking about painting your house- maybe go for the blue.