Painting your bathroom this color will add thousands to the value of your home – but choose the shade carefully

Painting a bathroom is one of the easiest ways to update it and, as it turns out, it's also one of the easiest ways to add value to your home – and the payoff is big. If you're exploring bathroom ideas as part of an upgrade before reselling, there is one color that will add an impressive amount of extra value. 

However, you need to be precise with your choice of shade for best results. 

The color in question is blue. A carefully chosen, stylish shade of blue will add 1.3% to the value of your home according to the Zillow Paint Colors Analysis. That's an average of $5,440 extra when you sell, just for the color. 

However, this won't be the case with just any shade of blue, which can be a tricky color to work with. Environmental psychologist Lee Chambers says that blue 'can be soothing and make you feel secure. However, much like grey, certain shades can evoke an element of coldness and sadness.' 

Dark shades of navy are not the best choice if you're looking for bathroom paint idedas for this reason, and overly dark colors generally have been shown to put off potential buyers. Dark bathrooms don't photograph very well, which can have a negative impact on attracting buyers. 

The color you should choose for your bathroom is periwinkle blue. This color is both light and bright, and very cheerful. It can come in a slight variation of shades – some are closer to powder or baby blue, others have a little more lilac or grey in them. The point is that this color reflects light well but is a million miles away from the blandness of white.

Speaking of white, this color is a bad choice for a bathroom if you are thinking of selling. Despite what sellers are routinely told by estate agents, white bathrooms are not the perfect safe choice that will appeal to the widest possible audience. 

Instead, Zillow's research suggests that buyers are bored of white bathrooms and will even pay $4,035 less for homes with a plain white bathroom. 

• See: Best ways to add value – home improvements to boost your house price

If you want to combine the easy-going and classic look of a white bathroom with the value-adding benefits of blue, consider painting just the tub a vibrant shade of blue.

Bathtubs themselves are highly covetable; moreover, 'If you only have one bathroom, a tub is a necessity', says property expert and HGTV star Scott McGillivray . Accenting the tub with color will draw attention to it, making it even more attractive.