What Color To Paint Room?

[jyl]

Help settle an argument that threatens to rend my marriage asunder.

My wife has decided that we need to repaint our dining room. Apparently prosperity red is supposed to be used in the kitchen, not the dining room. My point, that red kitchens cause hot tempers, has been met with, well, exactly that. Which should prove my point but somehow doesn't.

So anyway we will then need to repaint the dining room since you can't have two adjacent rooms of the same color. Something about a Feng shui hemorrhage or diarrhea.

The choices for the dining room being fought over are
- Black, or charcoal gray
- Gold, a real gilded gold, not yellow
- Silver, again a real shiny silver
- Some combination of these, in vertical bands

What say you?

[Gogar]

IMO since you have a generous amount of stuff on the walls themselves you should make an effort not to draw attention to the paint. Let the paint complement the cool stuff, instead. As such, two-tone and or shiny paint would be a no-no.

I'm no interior designer, but I slept in a Holiday Inn Express last night.

[stomachmonkey]

When we were building this house I came home one day and the wife presented me with two floor tile samples and asked my opinion. Seemed like a safe enough question to answer.

So I said "I like that one".

"Great, now I need to start all over again"

I was about to respond, why on earth would you present me with a choice that you don't like, but remembered, she's a woman, it's not her fault.

I say pick your battles.

[imcarthur]

Originally Posted by Gogar

IMO since you have a generous amount of stuff on the walls themselves you should make an effort not to draw attention to the paint. Let the paint complement the cool stuff, instead.

Agreed. Gold/silver are garish. It looks like a dark interior room. The wainscoting lightens it & I would go light canary yellow or something on top which also help lighten the room & would make the pictures/plates etc 'pop'.

Ian

[jyl]

It is a dark room, north facing, trees, Portland winters. There are 800 watts equivalents of light hanging from the ceiling and I leave them all on. A brush with seasonal affective disorder a few years ago taught to say screw saving energy (though we do use CFL and LED mostly).

The other possibility discussed was a sort of dove gray, like a museum wall.

[Bill Douglas]

A warm off- white.

It bounces light around better and has a clean fresh feel about it.

[rwest]

My job is to maintain several buildings and whenever it comes to picking out colors for anything, I don't- rookie error to pick a color, no one is happy and you have to deal with it for a long time. I ask for volunteers in the building who care about the color and let them pick... With one caveat, I have veto power.

Smart move is let your wife pick and only have an opinion if the color is hideous, even then try and keep your mouth shut, just isn't worth it.

[scottmandue]

Puce! No... not really, I just like saying puce.... puce, puce, puce...

I don't do colors anymore, I let wifey do all that (see, I am getting good at this hubby stuff!).

Of course I DO care... but as said, pick your battles...

Also of course I am always consulted and presented with paint chips... I have learned to lay the chips out on the table and slooowly way my hand over them looking at my wife for a tell... even at that I often pick the wrong color... I will point at a chip and get the sour face. I then pick that chip up, look closer and exclaim... "naw, not that one."

[jyl]

Yeah but her initial suggestion was jet fokkin black . . . I don't know where she got the Morticia thing, we don't sleep in coffins or anything.

My job is to maintain several buildings and whenever it comes to picking out colors for anything, I don't- rookie error to pick a color, no one is happy and you have to deal with it for a long time. I ask for volunteers in the building who care about the color and let them pick... With one caveat, I have veto power.



Smart move is let your wife pick and only have an opinion if the color is hideous, even then try and keep your mouth shut, just isn't worth it.

[PorscheGAL]

I say Charcoal Grey. Restoration Hardware has some nice examples of that color on their website.

[dan88911]

Here are some suggestions: Benjamin Moore Classic Grey 1548 or Clay Beige OC-11... Valspar Churchill Hotel Ecru 3002-10C or Blue Arrow 5001-3C... SherwinWilliams Sea Salt SW6204

[masraum]

of the choices that you posted, gray.

Black?

Good Luck.

[look 171]

Are you painting the wainscot only? Woodwork in older houses should be painted white or off white color, then accent the upper portion of the wall with color. That, I choose Behr's Fashion Gray. It isn't jet black but does carry some weight. It is a very comfortable, calming color. I have used that color with tremendous success in many older and modern homes. Ceiling should be kept white. We did work for someone here, and their kitchen was painted Fashion Gray. Next thing I knew the whole house is almost painted that color. They like it that much and it worked our very well as it is s modern home.

[LEAKYSEALS951]

Just for experiment sake, post some color swatches of the potential colors you want.
I want to try color change on photoshop. I'm also going to take down your christmas lights. No guarantees.
P.S.- I am going to clean your shelves a bit for convenience sake!
R

[Shaun @ Tru6]

I just painted most of my bedroom with Behr Mainsail. I lucked out because the color card was more of a dirty white grey, which would have been OK, but it turned out to be a perfect (for me) light grey that really brightened the room more than I could have asked for.

Just found it at the Behr site, you can see it in different rooms here. Now I just need the perfect cotton white for all the trim.

Paint Colors | ColorSmart by Behr | Behr Paint

[Shaun @ Tru6]

When you do find some colors you like, do Pinterest searches with them

[Nostril Cheese]

Plaid

[Jim Richards]

Originally Posted by look 171

Are you painting the wainscot only? Woodwork in older houses should be painted white or off white color, then accent the upper portion of the wall with color. That, I choose Behr's Fashion Gray. It isn't jet black but does carry some weight. It is a very comfortable, calming color. I have used that color with tremendous success in many older and modern homes. Ceiling should be kept white. We did work for someone here, and their kitchen was painted Fashion Gray. Next thing I knew the whole house is almost painted that color. They like it that much and it worked our very well as it is s modern home.

Behr Fashion Gray? Where have I seen that before?

John, your wife's suggestion to paint it jet fokking black is quite admirable, but neither of you will really be really happy until you paint it Aubergine. You know you want to.

[Gogar]

My hallway is Behr Fashion Grey. It's great but I imagine it to be too dark for the whole house.

Go to houzz.com and type in some searches. It's a great website and you will find tens of thousands (literally) of pictures of all types based on your search.

Pictures of houses. Not other pictures.

[look 171]

Gogar, you are a gentleman (you too Jim) with great taste. That's a great color. Jim has it in his hallway with no windows, but the new lighting did the trick.