In Living Colors

How many psychologists does it take to paint a house?

Two. And it helps if one of them is an artist.

Now after much effort and about $8,000, the interior of Jack and Jean Hattem’s hillside house in San Clemente reflects not only their tastes but what they know about the psychological effects of color.

Gone are the standard off-white walls that greeted the Hattems when they moved in 18 months ago.

“That’s what every apartment and townhouse is painted,” said Jean, who paints in watercolors and works in ceramics. “It doesn’t clash with anything, and most people just leave it that way. What does it do emotionally? Not much. It just houses them.”

But the walls in the Hattems’ house, painted to their specifications by a painting contractor and a faux-style painter, “make us both excited,” Jean said. “It’s like the house nurtures us. I like the feeling that every room is a new experience.”

Married 28 years, Jack, 71, and Jean, 64, have long since seen their children leave the nest. Back when the Hattems married, however, the nest filled instantly with his two sons and her four daughters.

“On weekends, we really were the Brady Bunch,” Jack said. Now there are six grandchildren, and they visit often, he said.

The garden is Jean’s space, and Jack leaves her to it. His refuge is his den. But they worked together when it came to decorating the house’s interior. The arrangement was simple, Jack said. “She made the decisions, I had the veto power. We decided everything would be 100% agreement. It worked out very well.”

When you enter the two-story house built in the ‘80s, the entry hall’s vaulted ceiling hovers far above you. The walls of the entry hall are a neutral gray.

There is color here--a candle, a saucer, a painting, a sculpture--but only as accents. “I wanted it to be soothing. I wanted it to not hit you right in your face as you walk in. It eases you in,” Jean said.

The gray walls of the entry hall dissolve into lighter shades as they rise past the staircase, where sunlight streams against them through second-story windows. The ceiling is painted bright white.

“You want the feeling of light going up, so when you walk up the stairs you don’t have a sense of going into darkness,” Jean said. “It’s like the sky overhead.”

Walk through the entry hall and you enter the combination living room and dining room. Now you have left the neutral behind. The walls here are a muted terra cotta, but there is more texture and variation on one wall than you would expect from a paint roller.

The wall has been faux-painted--washed with various glazes here and there to suggest a sunset. A painter worked on the wall as the Hattems stood by, looking at the sunset through the room’s French doors and windows and suggesting a little more yellow here, a little more violet there.

The result has been a melding of the view of the garden, distant hills, ocean and sunset with the room’s interior. In every room, Jean said, she tried to coax the outside view into the room with complementary colors.

The kitchen is a palette of greens--very dark on the cabinets, lighter on the walls and ceiling--because outside the greenhouse window is lush greenery. Even the telephone is a deep green.

“It really gives you the feeling that when you’re sitting at the breakfast table you could be standing in the garden,” Jean said.

The green motif continues into Jack’s study, but in deeper hues. A dark carpet, fireplace, bookshelves and a rosewood desk make the room “seem like my cave, even though it’s open to the kitchen and I can see all the way to those windows and the sunset,” Jack said. “We were going to wall it in, but this is too nice. It just feels like a safe place. It’s the best study I’ve ever had.”

Through the other side of the entry hall is the master bedroom, its walls painted a solid mauve to complement the buff-colored hills you see through its window.

While the wall colors in other rooms were meant to energize, “this color is very soothing. When you come in here to go to bed, you really feel like settling down,” Jean said.

The mauve continues into the adjoining bathroom, but it is subtly lighter in order to turn up the mental energy a bit.

To rebel against white walls “you have to have guts, you really do,” said Jean, and Roger Merrill agrees. He’s owner of Merrill Paints in San Clemente, where the Hattems got paint and glazes and much of their advice.

Merrill is a missionary when it comes to wall color. Anything but white, he preaches. Crank up your courage and try it.

“It does take courage, because nobody wants to make a mistake. But you can’t make a mistake. It’s totally subjective. And if you don’t like it, you just put on another layer.”

Merrill’s specialty is faux painting, which he teaches at his paint store. It’s a process of amending a painted surface to make it look like something else--wood grain, marble, the transparent shades of a watercolor. It’s done by applying washes and glazes over a base coat of paint that has at least a little gloss. Merrill said the necessary tools “are probably in your garage right now--’ruined’ paint brushes, cheese cloth, plastic bags, tissue paper, shopping bags, newspapers.” Many specialized tools are also available to create faux effects.

You use them to apply a glaze or take it off, leaving a pattern or texture. “It is so simple to do people are amazed,” Merrill said. “I can make you an expert in five minutes.”

Merrill recommends these steps:

* Find three things in your house whose color you really like.

* Take them to a good paint store and find the person familiar with faux painting.

* Ask questions, then get a quart of paint that matches each of your favorite colored items and a half-gallon of glaze for each.

* Mix a cup or two of paint with the glaze, and use something, almost anything to wipe it onto the white wall (except newspaper with water-based ink, which stains). Make sure the paint already on the wall has at least a little gloss, because glazing won’t work over flat paint.

“And that’s it,” Merrill said. “Now the wall has character, a kind of transparent color to it, and it’s a color you already know you like.

“And if you don’t like it, you can put a different glaze right over it. You can’t fail.”

Steve Emmons can be reached at (714) 966-5973 or by e-mail at steve.emmons@latimes.com.

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According to various interior designers, you can expect these results from walls painted these colors:

RED: Increased muscle tension, respiration , blood pressure, libido, appetite and creativity.

GRAY: A relaxed state that stimulates creativity and productivity.

YELLOW: Elevated mood, but sometimes to the point of aggravation.

GREEN: Reduced muscular tension accommodating concentration and meditation.

BLACK: Creates an air of authority, as in executive offices or boardrooms.

BLUE: A sedate pensive state with decreased blood pressure and a tendency to lose track of time.