I’m having a painting/decorating dilemma. I’ll admit the decorating will have to come later… much later…  but, I’d like to get the paint right first.  My downstairs is painted bold colors - clay red kitchen, dark sage living room and deep purple full bath.  My bedroom is a dark army green.  I want to paint my gameroom and my daughter’s room.  I love the dark/bold colors, but I’m afraid that if I go too muted and/pale that it will not flow.  ~ Erica

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Erica, paint is one of the largest design elements in a room and one of the easiest and cheapest wats to make a change. And it is tempting to want to do that immediately, to get started, to see some results.

However…

I know you said the decorating would come later, but I would discourage you from getting too far ahead and investing time and money in paint without first having something to based your color choices on — usually a fabric or a work of art that you love.  Paint can be mixed to color match anything, but if you start with a paint color, trying to find a sofa or fabric to match is much much harder. If you want to get the paint “right” then you should work on getting some of your larger furniture first.

As far as your bedrooms, since they are not public spaces, you should paint them whatever color you love. I usually start with my bedding fabric as a basis and then work from there in choosing colors.

As far as your gameroom, if it is visible from the public spaces of the house, such as your living room, then I would go with a color that is related in some way to maintain a sense of continuity and visual flow that you want.

Do you have any recommendations as to what color I should paint my bedroom to go with this new bedspread? There are two large windows on either side of the bed and I have tan grommet top drapes with brushed nickel hardware.

I purchased a quart of celery/lime green paint and brushed some on the walls to give me an idea of how it would look. I LOVE the color, but I don’t know if it would look good in such a large room.

Also, my husband is conservative (our last house was almost entirely one or another derivative of white). I want more color in this house, but I want him to be happy with it too. I’m just afraid our whole house is going to be white or boring beige!  ~ Katrina

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First off Katina, I love your new bedspread! Aptly named Moroccan, it is fabulous and exotic and your new white furniture is beautiful as well. 

As the rooms stands now, there are two wrinkles in your design as I see it.  One is that your beautiful white furniture gets lost against your white walls, so I will take your side on paint  — you need some color on the walls to feature your furniture and bedding.

The second glitch is your curtains. I know that they are probably brand new and you probably love them, but I don’t think they are right for this room.  I would describe the mood of your bedspread as exotic (Hello? Moroccan!) vibrant and cheerful and the curtains as quiet and subdued — a definite conflict.  If possible, I would replace your curtains with something more in keeping with the spirit of the bedspread and use your curtains in another spot — one of your beige rooms perhaps!

Okay then, paint.  I looked at a couple of different paint scenarios for you. The first one is using a green similar to what you have described.  I think if you are willing to change out your curtains, the green will work okay and look nice, although when I look at your bedspread the bit of green found in it is too subtle to use in such a big way as wall color, at least for my eye.  In person, it may read differently.

The second paint color I looked at will probably make your husband sit down on the floor and weep - cinnamon!  I understand this color may be too overwhelming for some people, but to my eye, it is exotic and rich and romatic — everything I want in a Moroccan boudoir.  And your white furniture will definitely stand out nicely against it.

In the true spirit of compromise, and because I don’t think I can convince your husband to go with cinnamon, I really and truly think that if you will change out your curtains to something more similar in color to your bedding that, you could both be happy with a nice warm beige.

Zzzz….

“Help!  We just bought our first home and I have no idea what to do with my dining room.  The problem is that the walls are contractor off-white with white trim. It has a chair rail, but I have no idea what to do with it.  I do not want to use wallpaper, or more beige. I have a cranberry wall in the living room, and I would somehow like to bring that color in, but the chair rail trim is just stumping me. Should I take it down, or just paint the same color above and below? I have no idea what to do, but that off white is killing me.   ~ Jenn”

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Jenn, I couldn’t tell a lot from the pictures you sent, but I loved what I saw.

The red living room wall color is a strong color and works well with your modern/traditional furniture with the clean lines.  In think in your case, one strong color calls for another and the best way to achieve this might be with what is called a “triadic” color scheme. Instead of choosing the color directly across from the color wheel for contrast which would be green, go left and right of green which is your deeper hued yellows on the right and blues on the left.  

I would consider using a rich yellow ochre shade with a tinge or brown below the chair rail, one shade lighter above the chair rail and then even one shade lighter on the ceiling (if the ceiling is isolated with crown molding).  You want to avoid shades that you might describe as sunny or lemmony.

The chair rail helps to break up the space and adds a bit of visual interest, but it wouldn’t ruin the space either if you decided it had to go. Unless I was planning to retexture the wall anyway, I would not go to the trouble to remove it.  Another option is to paint the chair rail either black which will really make it stand out or the deepest shade of yellow ochre to make it analagous to the wall color.

If you go with the yellow ochre idea, your cranberry/indigo/yellow accessories are what will make it work — think red matted and black framed art contrasting against the yellow walls and curtains with a splash of cranberry.

Any other ideas for Jenn?

“My question is about paint color, specifically how to use color on the walls in decorating a home.  How much of the house should match, is there an ideal number of colors to use in a house, do the rooms need to match each other, etc.  Basically I want to walk the line between boring beige on every wall and too much color and would love to hear your thoughts on it. ~ Liv”

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Well Liv, that is a really good question and one I wish I had a really good answer for, but it all depends.

I think everyone should use color in their home in a way that expresses their personality and style and makes them happy.  For some of us, that will be beige everywhere.  For others it will be a rainbow in every room.

When I am working on a home for a builder, because I am trying to appeal to the widest audience of buyers, I generally limit my palette to three colors - a shade of white for the trim and mouldings, a strong warm beige for the walls and then another accent color for the dining room or kitchen, which we sometimes jazz up with a metalic glaze.

One way to get the visual appeal of a variety of colors is to use varying shades of the same color.  In other words use three shades of the same color in any given space — think below the chair rail, above the chair rail and then ceiling.  If you are able to put a glaze on top of any of those shades of the same color, you get even more mileage out of your single color.

For the average homeowner, using a lot of different colors in one visual space is difficult and hard to get right. More often than not the effect is disconnected and chaotic.  However, when it is done right it can be stunning — think of Mexican or Italian pottery.   

If you are using a variety of colors in one visually connected space, then those colors should relate to one another in some way — they are all warm, or all muted or all something.  However, in private spaces like bedrooms, then all bets are off and you should choose whatever color you like with no regard to how it relates to the dining room.

So how many colors are in your palette?

Hello Antique Mommy,
 
I need help.  My husband and I just purchased our first home.  It was built in 1976 and has the original everything.  It’s hard to know where to start, but the two things that are bothering me the most are the ceiling and the fireplace in the living room.  The living room is the first thing you see when you walk in our home and it sets the tone.  The ceiling is a cedar tongue and groove and it continues down one wall.  We don’t know if we should paint, stain, or rip it off.  Also the ceilings are vaulted and there is a red brick fireplace that is floor to ceiling.  I’ve painted the walls olive and it looks terrible with the red brick and cedar ceiling.  HELP!!

 ~ Amanda

First off, congratulations Amanda on your new house! Let’s all stop and hum a few bars of “We’ve Only Just Begun.”  Seriously, so much ahead of you - broken water heaters and possibly even a front door that won’t pull shut just as you are leaving for the airport.  Homeownership is just a lot of fun.

Second of all,  from what I’ve seen, I LOVE IT! What a fabulous view you have and I just see a ton of potential in this space.

Let’s start with the fireplace and your options and then my recommedation.

There are many many ways to reface a brick fireplace.

You can lay big 18×18 travertine/slate/granite/ceramic tiles on the diagonal for a very clean, modern look.  There is also a great product out now that is a lightweight stone that comes in a variety of flavors.  It really looks like a piece of stone (and trust me, I would not tell you it did if it didn’t) except that it is flat on the back like a piece of tile and it’s lightweight.  You would find this product at your local brick yard.  It is applied just like tile, except by a stone mason.  It can even be used outside.

You can also reface your fireplace in panelled wood for an ultra-traditional library look, although I don’t think that would be a good choice for your house.  As you mentioned, you can sheetrock over your fireplace, and frankly this is my least favorite option.  I think it is just too modern of a look for this home.  And finally you can simply paint over the existing brick, and that is my recommendation - good old fashioned paint.

I think that probably the brick on your fireplace is the same brick that is on the front of your house, so I think it would be wise to maintain that small thread of continuity.  Since you have already painted your walls an olive green, I vote for painting the fireplace an olive green with a good bit of brown to it for a tone-on-tone look. Additionally, I would paint the half-bricks that surround the firebox  and the hearth an even darker shade of green-brown.

Also, I would really really like to see you get a mantle on this fireplace to break up that tower of brick, something chunky and wooden to go with the ceiling.  Any trim carpenter can easily do this for you.  If you win the lottery, think about putting in some hand-scraped hardwoods in a dark finish.  Until then a flat patterned berber in a rich green-brown would be great!

The next issue is the ceiling.  Quite honestly, I would just leave it alone. When I messed with your picture in my design program, I painted it white and it just looked… dumb.  If you paint it white, then it’s the only white element in the room. If you paint it green, then if you change your wall color, you are stuck with a green ceiling. No other colors look very good.  At least live with it a few years before you make a decision. If at some point down the road you are able to add some hardwoods in a similar color, I think it will make a world of difference in how you feel about the ceiling. 

 Abpve, Amanda’s den before she painted it.  I’ll bet that’s olive green paint in that bucket. 

  Amanda’s den after I painted it, laid some carpet and put in ugly curtains. The brown strip across the fireplace is supposed to represent a mantle.

Below is a swatch of the fabric you are planning to make into stationary panel curtains.  You mentioned using bamboo or matchstick shades for privacy and I think that is a great  choice – it will bring some interest and texture to the space, as opposed to standard two-inch blinds.  I think the window to the left of the fireplace is going to be a challenge to dress.  Maybe some of our blinds/window coverings distributors have some ideas? 

Be sure to pull in the red with your accessories — pillows, art, lamps, etc. — to make this fabric work. Also, I’m thinking adding another color to your palette would really make things hum in this room - maybe yellow? What do y’all think?

The journey of a home improvement project begins with a single trip to Home Depot. And then another trip to Home Depot when you get home and find out you bought the wrong thing.  And then a few trips to Lowes and maybe even one to Ace Hardware, the place with the helpful hardwareman. Come on! Sing along!

Welcome to the wonderful world of homeownership Amanda!

Have you ever been in a store and seen something that just seemed so lovely and so right for your home? And then you purchased it and brought it home? And then once you got it home, you thought to yourself, “What was I thinking? This is hideous!”

Well it happens to the best of us.

Sometimes it happens with a little decorative item and you take it back from whence it came and pretend it never happened. Or maybe you keep it and take it to a White Elephant Christmas party and then when it is opened, everyone goans and no one tries to steal it and you pretend like you’re not the one who brought it. Not that that’s ever happened to me. No, not at all.

And then other times it happens with big things, like the carpeting that you selected for your entire house or the kitchen counter tops. And there it sits like a big elephant that you don’t know what to do with. Or sometimes the elephant is already there when you buy the house and it refuses to leave.  Stay with me people, we are still talking about design.

Sometimes we, for one reason or another, are stuck with a giant elephant sitting right square in the middle of our decorating dreams. What do you do? What. Do. You. Do?

Yesterday, I got an email from Joan along these lines. She writes:

“I am stuck with hunter green counter tops in my kitchen. The cabinets are cherry, the floor a white-ish linoleum. Sounds icky I know, but it is also tied together with this garish fruity/flowery wallpaper. Assuming you couldn’t change the counter tops – what color would you paint the walls? I really want to get rid of this wallpaper. Any suggestions?”

Oh yes Joan, I remember that design you are describing, circa 1987, the jewel tone years…

Okay, where were we?

Yes, the hunter green counter tops. Are you sure you can’t ditch’em? Maybe overlay them with a nice granite tile in New Venetian Gold?  If the answer is no, read on:

If you have a large design element, like a counter top, that you absolutely can’t change, you have no choice but to embrace it.  Go on and give that elepant a big ole hug.  Just try not to compound the problem by spending money on more big ticket items that “go” with it if you really don’t like it because who knows what tomorrow may bring. You could win a free counter top from Home Expo but then you’d already have a hunter green refrigerator.

Once you take down the wallpaper, everything will look a lot different Joan, and probably a little naked and a lot brighter. And you will probably be better able to get a feel for what color you like without all the visual noise and fruit short circuiting your eyeballs.

As a guideline, if your eye prefers contrast, I would go with a muted shade of yellow, something like Sherwin Williams Birdseye Maple or Convivial Yellow. Other yellows I like are Behr’s Pismo Dunes and Quiet Veranda. I’m not partial to Behrs or Sherwin Williams, those are just the paint decks I have handy and I’m too lazy to go upstairs and find the others.

If you prefer a tone-on-tone look, try an olive green such as Sherwin Williams Lucent Yellow (trust me, it’s not yellow). Behr also has a green I like called Harmonic Tan (trust me it’s not tan). I would try to stay away from a green that has a lot of blue in it because that spruce-y green is not a very appetizing color for a kitchen. And because I just don’t care for that color, it’s kind of a sad color to me.

The thing to know about color is that the more light that is on it, the brighter it will be. So then if you go with a yellow and the room get’s a lot of light, you might want to start your sampling with a less saturated yellow.  The yellows that look great in the paint store will seem too vivid in your house.  Also be aware that flat paint will absorb light and make it appear less bright. Eggshell, satin and gloss finishes will reflect light and make it appear more bright. If you want to do any glazing on top of your wall color, you must use a paint with a slick finish like an eggshell. Yellows make a nice base coat for glazes, greens less so.

And finally, the other paint suppliers may be doing this now too, but Sherwin Williams offers little quart samples for like $8 or something like that, so take advantage of that and put up a lot of big samples in various places and look at them at different times during the day. Live with them for a week or so before you settle on a color.

Additionally, I would to talk to a painter about putting a dark glaze on the cabinets to take some of the red out and make them more brown. If you can warm up your cabinet color, then your counters and wall color will probably work together better.

Having said all that? Honestly, I don’t really think the paint is going to do much to make the elephant more appealing.  If anything, it will probably make the elephant more annoying.  When you are ready to replace your counter tops, we’ll talk.

Good luck with that elephant Joan!

Do y’all read Bub and Pie? If not, you should, that is if you like smart and funny all rolled into one.  If not, then go read my drivel.

BAP, as I call her in my head, sent in a great question on hardwood floors and a follow up question on paint:

“1) Let’s say I can afford some hardwood in my house.  Is it better to go with hardwood in the living/dining room and tile in the kitchen, or put carpet in the living/dining room (which becomes more of a living room/den) and hardwood in the kitchen?  (The kitchen contains a large eat-in area, in which I could put a table with leaf.)”

First off, a primer on hardwoods. If your house is on a slab, putting hardwoods down in an area like the kitchen or a bathroom is not a good idea and I don’t know a builder that will do it.  One plumbing leak and you can kiss those expensive floors goodbye because that water has no place to go.  Once it absorbs into the wood, it buckles and bubbles and you’ve got yourself a lifetime supply of kindling.

If your house is on pier and beam, then the water can drain below and your hardwoods “probably” won’t warp and swell.  Too badly.  Yes, I know that you see hardwoods in kitchens in model homes all the time, but I assure you, the eventual buyer of that home will sign a big fat disclaimer.

So then, I think tile is best for kitchen, and in my opinion, the bigger the better, 13×13 at a minimum, 18×18 preferably depending on the size of your kitchen. 

I personally don’t like carpet in a dining room.  What a pain to keep clean and vacuum and most dining rooms are not all that spacious so you end up with a foot path around the table or through the room in short order.

My recommendation is to go with a big (low maintenance!) tile for the kitchen and contiguous hardwoods for the dining and living room which you can warm up with some nice area rugs.

And now for her paint question:

“2) The kitchen and dining room are connected by a door, but there are otherwise no vantage points from which both rooms can be seen simultaneously - they’re pretty separate.  Is it better to go with blendy colours in those two rooms, or to go for a contrast - or does it even matter?  If I put pumpkin in the living/dining room and sunflower yellow in the kitchen, would that make everybody’s eyes hurt? ”

Since the two rooms are not open to one another, I don’t think you need to go “blendy” (I love that word) but if you decide to go high contrast, the colors need to have some sort of relationship - like both being warm in tone, or muted in mood.  Also, I like to see a color thread in public spaces in a home and what I mean by that is that you accessorize the pumpkin room with at least one thing sunflower and vice versa. 

I think pumpkin in the living room with a dark hardwood floor would be stunning.

Sherwin Williams, left to right:   Marigold, Armoire Hickory Stain, Sunflower.