For me, the hardest part in any type of project is knowing where to begin. Thankfully, when it comes to choosing wall paint colors, there are some fail-safe guidelines!
I know, I know, you want to dive right into the paint deck and start selecting all your wall colors, but before you do, consider what is already in place. Remember, paint color is the easiest thing to match and change, but ignoring the more permanent elements of your home in favor of selecting your favorite wall color will lead to a design disaster. So before you begin, study the key elements:
- Flooring. Floors are the second largest surface area of your home, so don't ignore them. Seriously, don't! Wood is never "wood color." It's honey, or red toned, or charcoal, etc. When you're selecting a wall color, place your paint chip next to your flooring, and see whether they compliment each other. I generally like to go with a complimentary color or a high contrast color since I find the biggest paint mistakes to be the ones where the wall color is too similar to the wood color. For example, yellow walls in a room with honey colored stained floors, or red walls next to cherry stained floors clash in a bad way. If you're picking out new flooring, bring both a floor sample and a paint chip into the room where they will be installed. Samples look very different under showroom lights than they do at home.
- Cabinetry. The same rules apply to cabinets as they do to floors. Most likely, you won't be changing out your cabinets, so pick a wall color that coordinates well. I find that cool paint colors are often easier to work with and more flattering to warm colored wooden cabinetry than warm ones. Oftentimes I hear people say they don't want a room to look too chilly, so they automatically start looking at yellows, forgetting that wood cabinetry provides enough warmth itself.
- Stone. Each specific stone surface has its own individual color. For example, the background color in Carrara marble can look stark white, gray, blueish, greenish, or ivory. So while selecting accent tile and paint colors, hold your selection up to the stone that is already in place or that you will be using. Choose a color that is either within the stone already, or one that looks good next to it. This is especially important if you are trying to select a neutral paint color, since clashing beiges is never a good look, and a range of whites (for example cool white subway tile, ivory white floor tiles, and cream white marble) can look hodge-podge rather than crisp and streamlined. If you don't trust your eye to discern between neutrals, go with a bold or deep wall color or a color in a contrasting tone.
The same rules can be applied to non-natural materials as well. The key is coordinating with the tones already present. So if your vinyl botticino tile looks more pink than yellow, choose a paint color that compliments the pinky tone.
Once you know how to coordinate with the large, existing surfaces of your home, the smaller decisions like accent pillows and upholstery are much easier to make.
(Image: Leah Moss for Zoe & Trey's Refined Eclectic Georgetown Digs)
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Oh, that's why I hate my kitchen's wall color. Never thought about taking the floor into account. Oops!
I love that mirror.
The wood trim in our house changed the color of every paint sample I tried. Who knew? Because we added a slight amount of red to the golden oak stain to match an old staircase, every color started looking green. We ended up with Linen White (over my dead body, I said) but it looks terrific. Surprise!
Complementary, not complimentary.
Yours truly,
The grammar police
;)
Did ya get permission from the landlord to paint zig-zag pattern on the walls....
we think NOT!
Try again guys....
I remember something from the days when I was a printer -- blue soaks up brown. And the pink is genius with that lav.
1. Anybody have advice on how to decide on the right neutral color for a north facing room?
2. Any advice on how much trim to paint?
We just bought an 1860s row house in Philadelphia. The entire interior needs repairs to cracking plaster and the entire three floors need to be repainted. I am going crazy trying to figure out colors. It is north facing and dank and I love light, airy, and sunny.
I am also confused about how much of the trim to paint. There are very beautiful high baseboards and nice framing around windows and doors, but it is a very narrow row house and I think that painting the trim a different color from the walls will make things feel even more jumbled and crammed rather than vast and expansive. So I am thinking to paint the trim the same color as the walls, but then I wonder if I am doing a disservice to this wonderful trim?
Advice please!!!
We have lots of baseboards and I painted every bit of trim a crisp white. It really helps to give a sense of division and to give contrast to the walls. If you painted all the trim in the same color as the walls, I think it would have the opposite effect you were looking for: instead of being expansive, it would draw people's attention down to the floor because they're expecting regular trim.
One of the colors I used was an odd griege color that looks amazing in tons of light and terrible in low light, so whenever I think about switching the paint color, I look at it next to the trim and remember why I liked it so much. It just looks really, really good next to light colors and bright light.
Hi Thorndale,
I'm in the middle of a major renovation of our row house in the North of France (hence the weird English, sorry about that, I do my best). Half the house is facing south, half is facing north, and some rooms don't have direct light coming into them. I gotta say, I had a lot of trouble with the floorplan at first (still have some issues).
We already redid the kids bedrooms in a baby blue that goes surprisingly well in both the north and south facing rooms. In our room, we chose a very dark chocolate brown. The kitchen is a light green (doesn't get any direct sunlight, so we kept it light). Home office is white with light grey stripes. The veranda is going to be a plain white, but with a lot of textures and a single wall of patterned wallpaper.
In all of those rooms, we chose white trims everywhere, for windows, doors, etc. Very, very white. Everybody told me it would narrow the rooms, especially the brown bedroom, but now that we did it, nobody makes that critic anymore. Maybe they are just being polite, but I love, love it. I feel it's a belt on a beautiful designer's dress: you don't notice it, but it makes the rooms grown-up, calm, and most of all, elegant.
If you want to see what we did, here's our bedroom :
http://www.duselauplafond.com/files/56bd10b084de177916caf874449fbae1-68.html
And my son's room:
http://www.duselauplafond.com/files/55e94c39ed3cc5ea3f46ec047b23d241-52.html
It's very hard to photograph small rooms, but you'll get an idea. I'd love to peek at your house, whatever solution you choose !
i love that mirror!
Just recently we bought a condo that has a medium brown carpet and nearly all the walls are painted a different version of a beige-brown too. I was struggling with paint chips until I realized that many of a particular Martha Stewart collection (the leaf one) are *perfect* color matches with the walls. Which is interesting, as I don't believe many of the rooms have been updated since 2001. It is a completely different line than what I was trying for (blues and brights) but honestly the other colors (not the browns!) look really nice with the carpet and seem to flow with the overall mood of the house. We're going to paint every room with off-white, white trim and just one accent wall in a saturated color from the collection (plum in the extra bedroom, bay leaf in the dinning/kitchen, Chayanne in the living room, blue in the master, etc...). It only came together after considering the carpet.
Anne-Hélène ,
Votre anglais est merveilleus .... préparez-vous à rire quand j'écris en français.
Les chambres sont tres jolie! J'ai toujour pensé que je n'aime pas les mur bruns -- mais pas maintenant! Merci pour montre.
Hi Thorndale -- I faced a similar trim-painting dilemma in my long and narrow sunroom. I ultimately painted the trim white only where I wanted to create visual focus. For example, I painted the trim white around the beautiful windows on three adjoining walls. However, I used the wall color on all of the baseboards, because I didn't want that to be a visual focus. Also, in a narrow room, a contrasting baseboard creates a "belt" effect and accentuates the narrowness. I also used the wall color on trim around two doors, because I didn't want to create a focus on those doors.
Does that make sense? I'm now planning to paint over some of the trim in my small living room to reduce the visual clutter and clarify the focus.
Anne-Helene, je l'adore! Your bedroom is great. Where can I buy those mirrored nightstands?
To therapyONdisplay - You made a remark about the people not getting permission from the landlord to paint the zigzag pink stripes in the bathroom. If you look at the credits, the home belongs to Trey and Zoe, and they own it. There's a house tour if you want to click on their names.
I love your bedroom!!! I'm a huge fan of dark bedrooms. love the simmetry too, it makes everything sooo peaceful. your son's bedroom is FANTASTIC!!!!!!!!!! super cosy...
You did a great job with this article! Many of those same principals apply in graphic design too. Also, think of texture as color and the visual cues it gives off and how it bounces and refracts light.
My landlord trusted me as a designer and let me paint a black wall in a white bedroom and a gray wall in my son's bedroom. It looks fabulous and it's a small risk compared to flooring and tile colors. I always go for color in accents and walls and accessories, but black is a beautiful neutral and so is gray.
Love the rich bedroom color.
Think of trim as the frame for your room. While I'm not fond of stark white trim as the only choice, if you're bothering to put color on the walls, white trim is a good starting point. White is particularly helpful when you're building an overall color scheme for your house and you want unifying details to flow throughout. White also tends to bring out the details in more elaborate trim.
We've actually done a fair bit of trim experimentation with this place. We're redoing one room at a time, from the flooring on up. Most of the carpet is nearly as old as the condo (so close to 30 years) and it's just not in good shape. We're replacing it with ash hardwood floors, and the two finished rooms have matching ash baseboards. This still gives a nice framing effect to the room. The original trim is a weird stained material... it might be wood, or it might not be. Hard to tell. While the material isn't very good, the chocolate brown stained color works surprisingly well for a framing effect with a lot of different wall and floor colors. In a good quality hardwood, the effect would be lovely.
If you'd hesitate to frame a dozen assorted pictures in a given color, it might not be a good choice as a trim shade. And while I might not hesitate to frame a dozen pictures in fire engine red... my partner (rightfully!) would hit me over the head with a cluebat if I tried. But gold, silver and black frames are used on a wide range of artwork, and stained wood works with a lot of art too, so it's not like white is the only possible trim.
at Nyumba,
I love you.
A fan of Grammar Nazis.
loving the chebron!
I remember walking into my friends newly painted house where they had warm grey carpet and new cool grey walls. Boy did that attack my senses! It made the carpet look dirty and the walls like the inside of a fridge! They didn't realise until they had pulled up the drop sheets what a monumental error they had made. Test every colour on a section of the wall even if its white! My advice is to always test within 1 meter of the floor and 1 meter of a window on an adjacent wall (3 feet ??)
Thank you guys so much ! Vos Français sont excellents !! Merci pour vos compliments !!
@PGF: The mirrored nightstands come from AMPM (it's a trademark from La Redoute, you can order via catalogue or on their website). Here it is:
http://www.laredoute.fr/vente-chevet-alouette-veritable-miroir.aspx?productid=324163043&documentid=999999&categoryid=54660863&customertarget=0&offertype=0&prodcolor=1#pos=27_n_n_n_n_n_n&numberpage=1
However, I snatched the two of them for 99€ apiece, waiting for the sales. They look great, but quality is only fair (cheap plywood underneath the mirrors, and the drawers wobble a lot).
@Thorndale: Regarding the trim, it really depends what colour you choose for the walls. Personally, I dislike bright white trim against colourful walls. It looks fussy, and reminds me of icing on a cake. From the Farrow and Ball website: "A good way to create light and space is to use the lightest colour on the largest surface area, such as the walls and the darker tone on woodwork. This works particularly well if you are using a neutral scheme and gives a more ‘decorated’ feel. The use of a dark colour on skirting boards not only makes the walls appear lighter in contrast, it also creates a strong contemporary look making everything above it feel lighter in contrast, and therefore the overall feel of the room is lighter too." Their site has some great inspiration for beautiful colour combinations, too. Good luck!
I'm terrified of making colour mistakes, so my only concession to colour on walls has been using Farrow and Ball's Cornforth White and New White. One is actually a dove grey, the other a pale cream that looks lovely with grey. It reassures me that there is 'white' in the name! I also like their Great White, a fantastic neutral that is neither overly cool or warm.
I love the pink n white zig zag pattern on the wall as well as the bamboo frame on the mirror.
Thanks for sharing, and great job! I've GOT to know where your bedding comforter is from. It's divine!!
Thanks everyone for your two cents on my color selections. Some very helpful insights. I am going to go with some shade of white on both the trim and the walls and ceiling. I am really inspired by the beautiful and subtle paint job in this picture. Though, the thing that is so hard about looking at picture is that most pictures have beautiful lighting, whereas my home will probably not. Inspiring none the less to see how gorgeous a simple palette can be:
http://phillystylemag.com/living/articles/townhouse-living-in-rittenhouse
@Fluffy Bee: It's from an old collection by Olivier Desforges (http://www.olivierdesforges.fr). I grabbed him like a crazy woman when I found it on sale a year ago !
@Thorndale. When I moved in, our house had this kind of beige shade on the wall, and it was catastrophic, due to the light. I've never been to Philadelphia so I don't know about the whiter there, but in the North of France, it's often rainy and cloudy, the light isn't a southern bright light but a cold one. Even with the huge window in the living room, it wasn't enough. I spent two years feeling like I lived in an badly cleaned aquarium.
I really love the photo you chose, but I'd be very careful when choosing the specific shade. My experience says don't go near beige with a hint of green, but a bright light sandy-grey might be beautiful.
Please, show us when you're done !
Yeah TherapyONdisplay, what are you talking about? There's nothing in this article to suggest it only applies to rental properties and the picture is from a house tour of an owned property, so they don't nee anyone's permission to paint a patter.
Your comments are misinformed and make seem childish.