(While Mark is away hunting down new colors in Mexico, we're running his top old hits. This post earned 3,208 pageviews last year.)

Name: Armagnac TH56
Brand: Ralph Lauren

I love these dark browns so much I could write about them every week. I wrote about my own brown accent wall last summer (Galvanized UL-12). Compared to my room, Armagnac is actually lighter and more chocolatey; Galvanized is like an espresso bean, though both have a red base. (And if anyone wants a green-based brown room, let me know.)...

This is a bedroom in a Brooklyn brownstone, with a second floor fireplace on the left. The effect is certainly womb-like, but to see the color in situ you would understand that the wide trim, enormous windows, white bedspread and afternoon sunlight all help to break things up, so that you never feel trapped. Not to everyone�s taste, perhaps, but for those of us who like that sort of thing it�s heaven.

- Mark Chamberlain, interior and decorative painter

(RePublished from 2006-11-28 - MGR)