My Home Redux

Painting an Accent Wall

I've often received questions about how to paint walls between adjoining rooms or walls within an open floor plan.  Also, having an accent wall that's a different color is very popular in today's decorating. But what wall and what color? Using paint to highlight a ceiling or even painting the ceiling a complementary color is very much in vogue these days. Here's a great article that addresses all of these issues and provides some helpful hints.

Blue Velvet is a Cool New Decorating Trend

Velvet, especially royal blue velvet is not hot. It's cool, elegant, sophisticated. It's not a trend to flame bright and burn out a year later. No, this color and fabric has been a popular symbol of luxury decorating since kings of years ago. Now, it's popular for your kingdom.  While seen in accessories and accents, blue velvet is a making its way back as the latest new classic thing in furnishing and upholstery.  To learn more, check it out in the Traditional Home magazine.

Hot New Color Combination: Green and Brown

Chocolate brown and soft turquoise has been a hot color combination for the past 12+ months. Now, meet it's new cousin:  brown and green. Frankly, I like the older combo better, but in the interest of sharing all the latest decorating news, I thought I'd share this one too. While this is example is showing brown and lime green, I don't see why you couldn't tone it down a bit with a deep taupe and sage green.  Tell me what you think of this combination in the comments.

Finding the Right Paint Color

Finding the perfect paint color can be difficult, time consuming, and frustrating. Here's a site to help make it easier. And they sell pint size samples so you can try it out in your own home.  My Perfect Color.

Check out their Color Trends for Fall 2007 as well as their most popular colors.

(Thanks to Becky for the tip!)

Painting Your Cabinets Bold

Painting cabinets has long been an easy and inexpensive to update cabinets.  The color of choice has always been white.  But not any longer.  Today you can use a variety of colors:  black, barn red, green, purple.  The good thing about painting cabinets is that you can always change it.

My favorite for painting cabinets has been Benjamin Moore oil-based Impervo for a hard, easily cleaned surface. Use high-gloss for a shiny, wet look, semi-gloss for a lustrous shine, or satin for a smooth finish. Tint to the color of your choice.

Hot New Color: Slate

Slate. It's the hot new color. The best thing is slate is not just one color. While you can describe it in general as a dark gray, that's really an injustice to the beauty and versatility of this color which can have green, blue, or even purple hues.  The color in the picture is Benjamin Moore's Mohegan Sage # 2138-30.

Also check out:
* Iron Mountain, Benjamin Moore #2134-30
* Heather Dusk , Behr #3A47-5
* Dark Sky, Dutch Boy #16H

(As many of you know, Benjamin Moore is my favorite paint manufacturer. A good paint dealer can take any color and match it to another manufacturer.)

Hot Color ... Hot Pink

Yes, the latest color forecasted to be hot is pink. Hot pink. And the hotter the better according to HGTV:

“Pink is very popular today and the hotter the better. The challenge is to keep it
  sophisticated. You don’t want to turn a room into Barbie’s Palace.”
    —interior designer Alysa Weinstein of New York City’s Ruby Designs

So use hot pink sparingly with accents, accessories, window treatments, and perhaps an accent wall. Don't succumb to more is better in this case. An entire room painted hot pink may feel more like you've entered a bottle of Pepto Bismol.

Pairing pink with other colors is key. Try chocolate brown. Mossy and sage greens. And even yellow and coral/orange if you dare.  Cream and white as your predominant color will always work well here.

Using Red in Decorating

Frequently people shy away from decorating with red because it's such a strong color, yet red is one of the warmest colors to use in interior design. That's why many designers use it in dining rooms - to create warmth and intimacy. I know I love my red dining room.  I've also seen people use a barn red or raspberry red in the kitchen.  Go upscale or more rustic - either will work with red. Use a lot like the picture above or a little. Accent a room with a few red accents - pillows, fringe or trims, table. Paint a focal point item red - like a table, chair, dresser. And of course, there's nothing more exotic than Chinese red in an Asian decor.

A few tips about red paint that I learned from our painter when he did our red dining room. Red will take several coats to apply because, while it's dark, it's a clear color and shows through easily. However, unlike common opinion, it's not that hard to cover with other colors. (I believe blue is the culprit for that.)

So if you want a warm, inviting color in a room, think red.

Use of Multiple Paint Colors in a Single Room

The days of a room with four walls of the same color and a white ceiling are still accepted but are not the only way to paint a room today. Instead, walls can use two different colors, including mixing faux finishes with flat paint, colored ceilings, and extra trim paint.  As you can see in this picture the walls have two different treatments, the trayed ceiling is not white but a creamy taupe, white trim, and an extra band of blue in a darker color between the trim and ceiling color.  All of these colors and textures are pulled together with the bed linens and window treatments. So let your imagination go and create a beautifully hued room of your choice.

Paint Colors with Open Floor Plans

Today's homes feature open floor plans. But how do you coordinate colors?  Or do you paint all the walls the same shade?  This question came from a reader this week. It's a good one that can be a bit tricky.

While painting all rooms one color will tie them together, but it's not the only way to achieve that goal.  My floor plan is pretty open, but I use different colors. I've used a warm taupe/tan in the hallways, foyers, and common areas to give consistency and continuity. But my dining room is red and my living room is a warm gold, Chestertown Buff.  My kitchen also ties in, but it's a bit more gold than the tan but is not Chestertown Buff. The kitchen flows from the hallways, but the colors are complementary. The dining room is very open to the foyer, but I've tied that together by using rugs that share both colors.  (My drapes will too ... if I ever get them made.)

 

The idea is that you can use complementary colors that don't fight and go together well to still give your rooms definition. Or if the colors provide more contrast, and they're very open, then use other items (flower arrangements, drapes, rugs, etc.) to tie the two together and serve as a visual "bridge".

These ideas allow you to define your rooms yet have a coordinated feel where nothing clashes.

UPDATE:  Stephanie and I wrote back and forth. (See the comments.) Then she had this question about painting one wall that's shared between two rooms.

I have another problem that I need help with, my kitchen wall connects with the den, it's all one wall, how do I separate the colors?  Should I pull the dorset gold down to the den so that the whole wall is the same color or is it ok to change the paint between the rooms? Will it look tacky? Help!!!

If I did that, one wall in the den will be the same color as the kitchen (dorset gold)  and the rest will be Richmond Gold.

I'm struggling with whether I should pull the dorset gold down to the den because it's all one continuous wall and then paint the rest of the den Richmond Gold.  If I did paint the whole den richmond gold, will it be tacky looking to change the paint with a noticable break or should I install a strip of molding between the two rooms where the paint color will change??? Is there a rule to this? They are two separate rooms, but it's sharing one wall.  I've read somewhere that you should only change
colors at corners.

Thank you so very much for your quick response and helpful advice. I love your website, its' full of wonderful ideas.

My response:

While I don't think the two colors of paint look that bad, it seems the few things I find confirm what you found and what I've always done is that you change colors at corners.  While doing it the same color would be fine, we're also thinking similarly in using a piece of trim at the dividing point by the railings.  Either a piece - but longer - like what the rail is secured too or a flat, beveled piece of trim or even a half fluted post.

Stephanie's decision:

Thank you for your advice.

I think I've decided to go with installing a piece of trim same as what the rail is attached to so that it blends in and see how that  turns out. It should be fine, the rooms would be more defined I think.

 

I will email pictures when I get through.

I appreciate all your advice and comments.

 

Thank you much....

Julie's last remark:

No, thank you for being a loyal reader!

Stephanie's solution:

I've decided to paint the whole wall in Richmond Gold. The two-tone of Dorset Gold and Richmond Gold in the kitchen looks great. It will pull the two rooms together. I will email updated pictures.