Design Question

I have light oak wood floors in my new home, light golden oak trim, and currently the walls are beige. My couch, loveseat and recliner are mahogany brown leather. The house is a somewhat contemporary feeling home on the inside, but looks like a cedar cabin from the outside. We sit on 1-acre of wooded land near a river. We love the river and also love the ocean, so we thought we might want to give the room a beach theme using some of our river and ocean cruise photos.

However, I am really stuck as to what color to paint the walls as the living room is very small with only 7 ft. ceilings, but it does have four good sized windows facing east, south and west. We’d like to carry colors/theme from living room throughout the home. Any advice you can offer would be fabulous. Thank you!

Design Answer

I remember when I was choosing a paint color for my apartment living room and hallway, I just couldn’t decide – I knew I wanted yellow, lemon rather than gold toned, but other than that I was at a loss. I admit, I was obsessing about it, and finally, a friend, trying to be helpful, said that if I really hated it I could just repaint over it. But that was the whole point – I don’t want to have to do that; I wanted to get it right the first time (and not have to do it again for at least a decade!) especially since it I knew that it is the wall color that sets the mood of the room.

Like me when I was choosing a color for my living room, you have a starting color place in mind – water, translation blues or greens (colors from Benjamin Moore). Once you have a color family in mind, you can begin narrowing down your choices by focusing on the colors that are already in the room, such as the rug, window treatments and fabrics including accent pillows and the sofa, in this case dark brown leather. Also include any new elements you might be adding to the living room like wallpaper, paneling or an upholstered accent chair.

Take as many fabric and material samples with you as possible when you go paint shopping. If you don’t have any samples, take pictures and bring those along with you. They will at least give you an idea of how the color you are considering will work with the other elements in the living room. You mentioned that the trim was a light, golden oak, but not the windows or doors (if there are any in the room). When painting a living room, white, off-white or a pale shade of the main wall color is typically used to paint the moldings, doors and windows.

Especially since your living room has four windows, you will want to test the color you have chosen to see how it will look during different times of the day, including how it will appear at night with artificial lighting. Also consider the paint finish and how it will look in the room. For example, a matte finish will reflect less light than a high glossy finish.

After selecting a paint color, take it for a test drive. Paint dealers usually will sell sample amounts of a color that you can apply to a wall to see how it will look. Once it dries, put different pieces of furniture against it to see how they will look. A paint color can look different in the can than it does once it is on the wall and has dried.

Thanks for writing in. Stay tuned next Monday when we tackle another interior design question. Keep sending me those emails and don’t forget to include pictures if you can.