Dramatic, rock n' roll, unexpected, sexy... I love it.

Awesome post, Nancy. I love black interiors. Living in Seattle and working at home, I'm not sure I could take it, but I'm tempted to do at least a black wall in my office.

Our breakfast room and kitchen have been painted black for a couple of years now. We love it but usually people cringe when we mention that it is black ...

I love every single one of these. Ready to paint a room!

A natural offshoot, perhaps, of the chalkboard craze. Anyway, I like it, esp. in the examples shown here. Now may we have a post on black houses (exteriors), please?

I love dark walls like these. I currently have my loft painted a really dark gray with white trim and I absolutely love it. The loft gets a lot of light though and is open so it doesn't feel closed in which can sometimes be the case with dark paint colors.

We painted a black accent wall in our bedroom and I love it. It didn't make the room feel smaller at all. In fact, if feels even bigger and really added the "oomph" we were missing. I'm a huge fan of black walls.

Most of the pictures here read navy, at least on my computer monitor. I find these dark walls sexy and would love to do this if I lived in a brighter area of the country.

I love the idea.

I'm not sure if I could pull the trigger on this. Maybe on one accent wall, but not a whole room.

I love all of this inspiration! I have always gone for light colored walls. We live in a small house, but decided it's time for a change after all these years, so we are painting our living room BM Gray Owl! :) I have always loved black and these rooms show why!

Every one of these examples is drop dead gorgeous. The key, it seems, is to have natural light and lots of architectural interest and other elements to break up the black. Then, the darkness can be dramatic and stunning. Great place to try this would be in a bathroom.

I love the idea of dark walls but I think they only work in a space with heaps of natural light. In darker rooms I would just stick to the classic light colours or end up feeling like I'm trapped in a very sophisticated cellar.

I love dark walls. I recently painted my dining area and living room a dark color in my small condo. I was going for a dark, smokey gray but once on the walls, the paint looks like a dark navy blue. Fortunately, my condo gets lots of light.

I painted my son's nursery black 4.5 years ago, and now that we have just moved (back into our old home which we had rented out), I'll be painting his room black yet again. His furniture is white -- floating shelves, low drawers for toys (top a play surface), intricately carved Indian bed. His bright over-sized potholder rug and his toys are beautifully set-off by the black. just love the look (nice to know I was well ahead of the trend!).

Love them. Of course, there's no way I'm cool enough for black walls.

I painted my bedroom black two years ago and still adore it. I too think the key is lots of light (there's six windows in a 16 x 16 room) and architectural details. It looks amazing now, so much better than the flesh color it was when we bought the place.

I have never understood the theory that light walls make a room seem bigger. Art or makeup 101 tell you that dark recedes. Therefore, wouldn't dark walls seem to push further back? To me, light walls seem to hit you in the face and feel too close. Anyone else?

As Amanda noted, the key is lots of light to make this work, imo. Some of these photos are pretty blown out exposure-wise to keep them from looking downright morose. This wouldn't work at my place...but give me some more windows in my rental and I'd love it.

TOTALLY TEMPTED!

I put together a mood board for my guest room. I've declared it "moody glam."

http://thenestinggame.com/2011/06/21/mood-swing-part-2/

This post just may make me pull the trigger.

What krazyakres said.

I think black can be beautiful in some rooms with the right amount of whilte molding and the right kind of furnishings. However, I draw the line on black bedrooms. That's the most depressing color to paint a bedroom. Color affects my mood and I'm sure it affects others, but they don't even realize it. Like painting a bedroom red. Totally wrong!!

I used to have really dark grey walls when I lived on Lanzarote some years back, and it worked really well and felt very relaxing. Nevertheless, back again in Northern Europe I feel better with as much light space as possible. When natural light is scarce from October til April dark walls would not help to avoid S.A.D.

Would it be difficult to repaint over black?

Loooving black/gray! Such an unexpected hue

I absolutely love the bathroom on the top row.

As other's have said, I think that a lot of natural light is key to making this work.

I was also wondering the same thing as jbond, would this be hard to paint over?

As a designer I too have thought to paint a very dark color on clients' walls, but never succeeded with anyone. Clients are afraid it will reduce their visual space. In my next apt. I am going to do it.

I always wanted to paint something black, but a combination of not having the right space to do it and living in Northern Europe where darkness already rules for nearly half the year has kept me from it so far.

Did this to our living room/dining/kitchen and I love it, but it is a HUGE space with lots of windows and technically it's dark gray, not black.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dahliablack/5288759933/in/photostream

What I didn't realize was that it was going to be SO easy to mark up, if you rub the walls too much it leaves behind these weird light streaks. Dark gray or black with a two year old is probably not the best idea.

All those rooms are beautiful. Yes I have done it and when I told people I painted a wall black they said "why" but when people saw it they liked it.

Before we redid our bathroom we had black walls,white tile and fixtures.Looked great,but wasn't for everyone.The room was long and narrow with 10 ft ceilings.Very dramatic.We loved the room and lived with it for over as decade.We did it spur of the moment because the tile was in such rough shape.When we redid the bath we used black tile!It just felt right in the room and our house.Very 'boutique hotel',we never tire of it.

I have seen many people paint walls with large picture windows black.Friends did this along the back of their house facing a wooded ravine.I think it's very beautiful.

If you decide to go this way with paint,look very closely at the type of black you pick.There are subtle tones in black paint.Compare them.You will be amazed at the different effects hue and tone can achieve.Pick black with the same mind set as white or greys.There is that much variation.I would also recommend flat finishes.

In my first apartment I sanded and painted my cheap, cheezy plywood kitchen cabinets high gloss black and installed chrome door pulls. Because the kitchen was miniscule, the black cabinets set the room's color and tone. The window treatments were also high gloss black 1" blinds. The countertops and appliances were white, and the floor was a light brown vinyl tile whose bland ugliness was suppressed with a light grey kitchen rug. A light bluish-greyish speckled random pattern wallpaper on the walls and backsplash helped mute the white/black contrast. Though I might not do this today if I found myself in a similar apartment, the changes worked incredibly well at the time.

Finally! I have had "white fatigue" ever since that trend started...