apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Since, percentage-wise, most of my walls are on the lighter side, I felt almost legally-bound to say that prefer light in my apartment, but my favorite (mural) wall is fairly dark.

No medium ground here, hunh?

what about neither? I don't like blacks nor whites on my walls, but relatively bright and 'colorful' colors.

Depends on the natural light (among other things)...

When I was in high school my parents repainted their house and let me choose my room's color. I was in love with a really deep oceany blue color (not caribbean ocean clear blue, more like a pacific ocean royal blue...does that make any sense?) but my parents INSISTED that I would hate it because it would make the room seem too small. The wood trim around the doors and windows was a dark color and they thought for sure they'd be repainting my room within weeks after the claustrophobia set in.

Boy were they wrong! The color turned out to be a fairly dark blue, yes, but for whatever reason (the natural light, the shape of the room?) it didn't make the room seem smaller at all and it turned out to be everyone's favorite wall color in the house :) Having said that, now that I live with my husband, I crave light, grayish, sagey greens on all of our walls and when we tried to paint our bathroom a similar blue to the one used in my childhood bedroom it wound up being awful and cloying. I think the effect that color has on a space has a lot more to do with the space itself than the color.

No matter the color, I tend to prefer the shades that are 2 or 3 from the bottom of a strip of swatches (think Benjamin Moore). I do despise colors so light that they are color-less, but truly dark colors don't work everywhere. The whole "dark closes in a room" arguement makes me crazy, though. It's not like a light switch, bright is big and dark is little. There are literally thousands of shades of difference on how color can work a room.

Since I can't vote twice, I'm not voting at all. There should be an option for "both--depends on the room." My bedroom is a rich dark chocolate, because I wanted the space to be both elegant and cozy. My living room is a light cream, because I wanted it to be open and bright.

One thing that does bug me is when people shy away from dark color because they think it will make a room look smaller. Even if this were true, what's wrong with that? In many rooms, it's okay--even good--for the room to feel small.

Depends on the room, the times of day you use it, what the natural light is like, etc. I tend to prefer richer, darker colors in nighttime rooms like the dining room and bedroom, and medium-tone colors or lighter neutrals in the daytime or day-and-night rooms like the living room and kitchen.

Last week I've found an interesting article about colors, and I think you should take a look.

http://freshome.com/2007/04/17/room-color-and-how-it-affects-your-mood/

I painted a dark color, and I'm actually quite proud that I did...painted a tiny, windowless kitchen DARK. I can't say why other than it just seemed right, it sort of connected with the countertop. I did add lighting, there was reflected light available in the wall cabinets and light floor that was chosen, and I even painted a part of the ceiling in that same dark shade, above the cabinets. I also added a few brightly colored decorative objects too. Here's the image.

http://www.thekitchendesigner.org/display/ShowJournal?moduleId=1098829&categoryId=94547

Precious - I took a look at the article you posted and it confirmed what I already know. I'm a freak. Every article on color and its effects advises to go yellow for cheer, but I hate yellow. I was persuaded to paint my dining room yellow, and now less than a year later, I'm painting it lavendar. I have a lot of saturated, dark color in my living room and kitchen - a gorgeous deep blue, almost a dark teal. Rather than depressing me, it makes me smile. I've learned to ignore those articles, because a yellow home would make me crazy.

Years ago Southern Living named BM 1009 the world's most perfect white. I have used it ever since. I like it because it seems to reflect whatever color is used with it, but it won't work with white appliances in a kitchen.

Sometimes dark colors can make a room seem more proportional, and therefore more spacious. My very narrow living room is definitely not dark, but I took it from stark white to green and it seems much, much bigger. Same for my bedroom, which is now the color of Susan's kitchen (which I love, by the way). Sometimes light colors, especially institutional white, can feel really claustrophobic.

Mark - I've moved to Switzerland, and horrors of horrors, the heathens who are offering to rent our house back home want to paint over my Fine Paints of Europe Donald Kaufman whites! I think they are still keeping the DKC Green/Brown, and am told they are keeping the oxblood (they intend to hang a rooster on it -!!!) but I am just horrified that someone would paint over those luminous full spectrum whites with BM's maple fudge (our floors are wenge with a bit of red and even purple showing).

For the record, I picked dark - mostly because I just painted 2 of the walls in our son's nursery black. Sound shocking, but it makes bright colours -- like his turquoise crib -- pop.

I prefer very saturated colors, but I voted light because the wall colors I choose tend toward colors which have a "lighter" nature--pink, lavender, yellow, and pear/lime greens.

You know, I just think it depends on what the room wants. Some rooms are meant to be dark; others, light. It depends on the quality of the natural light in the room, the size of the room, the use to which it will be put, and so forth.

Thanks Samantha! Actually, in our case, we worked with what we had. We have not yet done over the kitchen, no need to rush, really, it's in good shape, so all we did was repaint the walls and get a new floor, which was the wheat Chilewich vinyl floor.

I have to agree with Gretchen and Palousian. There are so many factors involved in the selection of a color for a room, you can't just say you only use lights or darks. The mood you want to set in the room, type of light entering the room, temperature, activity level, other colors in the room, size... the list goes on and on. I think an important point to stress here is balance. A room that is all dark is just as uncomfortable as one that is all light. Balancing your lights and your darks, your warms and your cools provides an environment that is more humane and user-supportive.

P.S. I would caution against placing too much weight on the article Precious posted about above. Unfortunately, there is a lot of misinformation in that particular piece.

I have a loft with an exposed beam ceiling, exposed brick, and a bevy of BM Timberland walls, among other shades of that same gray (Gunmental, Siver Lake, Hearthstone, Graphite) and because of the wood ceiling, the brick and the Timberland being the same brightness value, the place does have that 'vast like the night' feel. Others in my building who kept the white walls for the 'bright is big' feel are left with a looming ceiling that looks like it's falling down. I think dark works with dark, light with light. I wouldn't use the same color if I had a white ceiling.

Anne: I think people are afraid of rooms feeling small, due to lack of space to begin with. I.e. the idea is to create a smallest place that fits all of your life, and feels un-cramped.

I do very strongly agree about dark colors sometime working. I have a very-very strong orange hallway, and a dark dark grey feature wall in the bedroom. Looks good, even if I do say so!

I voted light by the way, as I am afraid of dark colors feeling oppressive. But then again, I intend on repainting the living room into various shades of gray in May, so we'll see ;-)

I've seen NY apts. with beautiful details some (pre-war) with the most awesome striking colors. But realize they wouldn't work for me. My apt. is like a box no trim no molding no interesting features at all. It's always been white except for last year when I painted it B.M. linen white. My accent colors a soft pink and two shades of a light and darker green help bring in color. I believe that it all depends like others mentioned on the room itself, details, height, and natural light. Size, I'm not sure, I've seen some tiny jewel colored rooms that again with the right details are extraordinary. It's sometimes difficult in choosing the right color for a space. But when your not sure and can't afford to chance it better going light and safe.

monika 1--pls send pix of your nursery, and everything else you have. i'd probably get columns for a month out of you.

colortherapy@earthlink.net

I say either

All white

OR

Use bright color(s).

Muted combos are dull and artless. Like khakis.

Mark -

the nursery is not finished yet (we are still in the throes of unpacking!), but I promise to send pictures when everything is done. My daughter's room has 2 fuschia walls (well, they were supposed to be, but I think they look a bit more magenta in the lighting conditions) and will be getting a cool carved bed in 2 -3 months, so I will reveal everything then.

Unfortunately, the walls in our home in North America did not get photographed, for a variety of reasons, although I had it on my list of things to do. First off, we only installed the baseboards at the very end (solid, square walnut, which looks particularly fabulous with the DKC green), and at the very end, we just ran out of time. It was crazy the last 2 weeks before our move. And we were still renovating our bathrooms (actually, the contractor still has work to do on them before tenants can move in). It breaks my heart about our small fortune in FPE DKC paints...the bones of the renovation were all in place, finally, and everything looked fabulous (ready for furniture and art). C'est la vie.

Just a comment about light and dark...

I was reading an article about Donald Kaufman on the net recently, and he said something to the effect that painting the inside the same colour as the outside will make the inside seem larger, regardless of whether it is light or dark. This of course makes perfect sense!

Back in a recent apartment, I had painted the walls of our office a very strong deep true blue. My husband was shocked, and tried to convince me to paint only one wall, but of course I persevered. The ceilings were fairly high at 9.5 feet, and so I had no qualms. When it was done, it was our favourite room in the apartment, the reason being that it was on the 6th floor, and thus, in the sky. At night, when the stars came out, the walls of the office melted into the dark sky (there were no other buildings around, just parkland); it was magic.

Here is the actual thing I read: "Choose colors so their values match a room's daylight hue, says New York City-based color expert and author Donald Kaufman. A light colored room gets a light color; a dark room a dark color. Sometimes, you can accentuate the feeling by making walls dark and lightening the color of the ceiling and floor. The perimeter then expands visually beyond the room's boundaries and the floor and ceiling reflect light back and forth, Donald Kaufman says."

...so much for the night-time colour of my office!!

And someone else said "Don't rush to paint everything white to make your space seem larger. Experts like Landis think white walls contrast too greatly with furnishings and end up visually shrinking a room. "White works best when it's part of a color scheme that layers a range of shades," she says."

I HATE it when I tell people I'm going to paint a room in a strong colour and they say "Won't that make it dark?" - I always say back "No because we have electric lights" - what is with this obsession with making everything light? - I love my strong dark colours - for me its one extreme or the other - either something strong and rich and colour saturated or all white (which is a strong colour statement anyway)

I vote both... my entry is dark brown, Pratt & Lambert "Loam", intentionally meant to "compress" the no-way-around-it-small entryway, so the *slightly* larger rest of the apartment seems to expand out of the darkness.

I also painted the far wall of a small galley kitchen a dark gray, and I SWEAR that room got bigger and wider in the process.

One of the most beautiful rooms I've ever visited was a study done in deep eggplant -- it was at the decorator's show house for something-or-other in Renssalaer County, back when we lived up there.

Our long San Francisco hallway in the last apartment looked grim in Rental Off-White. If we'd owned, it should have been painted the deepest golden brown possible, below the picture rail and then a lighter color of the same paint strip above the molding and on the ceiling, with a pearlized wash only on that part. That, with tailored white trim, would have been a statement more eloquent than, "hey, does this foyer get any light?"

I'd never do a dark living room, though, because I want my particular living room to be a sunny place for reading the Sunday paper, rather than a dramatic place for a cocktail party.

monika1-I agree with your posts and want to see that nursery! I painted my dining room a very deep blue, like your room, because it has large windows that look out on the water. At night, the walls do just melt away and it's fantastic. In the daytime, sunlight streams in and the walls are not washed out, so equally nice.

White and very light walls never seem spacious to me (unless they are empty) because the contrast of all the STUFF pops out and you see everything so strongly. But paint a color that already is used in your room (wood, art, uphostry, etc.) and the effect is calming, creating a much more expansive looking room. But I am not afraid of paint.