apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

You need a "sunshine" color with your black-and-white: sunny yellow, clear orange, yellow-based pink, aqua, or lime. A clear, yellow-based color adds the impression of sunshine and warmth in rooms that don't get much light. And they all look fantastic with black-and-white. (You may want to paint some walls rather than wallpapering the whole place -- you need some faux sunshine bouncing off basement walls.)

Soft rather than bright colors are fine as long as the color isn't grayed.

use the wallpaper for an accent wall and paint the other walls chartreuse, e.g., the header color for the AT Los Angeles site. Spike it with orange and red colored furnishings. Choose either white, grey or brown flooring. I would think the FLOR tiles would work well on a slab.

I'm with the others in that use it as the base scheme, but add pop in one or two accent colors such as mentioned, red, yellow or something like that in both in accessories but also in the furniture, such as a bold, modern couch, perhaps w/ white back and sides w/ solid red cushions (ala the 70's) against that cool paper, but do one wall (2 at most but adjoining) and then play off the accent colors on the other walls.

Go w/ a neutral color for the flooring, such as an off white rug in the seating area and perhaps hardwood for the rest of the space and use a warm wood (such as teak or similar toned wood) in bookshelves, end tables and the like to warm things up a bit.

And don't forget lighting, not just utilitarian lighting, but fun accent lighting in lamps and such too.

I just saw a basement where the owner used similiar paper, cut it in half or thirds lengthwise, painted the walls the same white as the paper background and made vertical stripes with the paint and paper and did the entire room. The white paint stripes broke up the what could have been overwhelming pattern. Looked better than my feeble description.

I'm not sure you are going to get "cozy" out of a sunshine yellow or bright aqua room.

I'd actually go charcoal gray for an accent (or all) walls and play up the black and white with intentionally white elements, silver and chrome, and pop-scaled stripes of black and white, with walnut as my wood of choice.

You will get "bright" and "cozy" primarily from your lighting plan.

love the wallpaper! it reminds me of an episode of colin and justin's home heist on hgtv canada. they used a similar print for a bedroom. for inspiration check out the photo gallery for episode 4.

http://www.hgtv.ca/homeheist/Galleries/gallery4.aspx

Yikes. I'm with P(too) on this one. Be careful with the high-key colors in a basement! What looks good in daylight can look absolutely DREADFUL in a window-less basement.

Good lighting is going to be the key to having a cozy basement room. And warm wood tones! And a nice, plush, white flokati carpet...

Oh, P2, I'm so happy to hear your suggestion. I appreciate all the ideas but I had really been thinking of a silvery, gray color (the aesthetic in the current West Elm catalogs, say) and had begun to doubt myself.
Tips about lighting anyone? Thanks again.