Help! I am building a house and I am having a hard time colors!?

Question

I am a graphic designer - you would think I would be good at this kind of thing but I am stuck. My boyfriend and I are building a house. I want our kitchen walls to be a wine/maroon color - we are going to have a nook, so the wine color will also be in the nook. Our living room is right next to the nook (open area). Our original plan was to put marroon carpets in the living room. Too much Maroon!! Now I am stuck. I wanted to put hardwood (which is going to be in the kitchen and nook) in the living room too, and put a rug over the hardwood, but we decided we dont want that much hardwood on the first floor. We want our walls to be a nutural light brown. My other idea was to put a tan carpet instead of the wine/maroon and put big multi colored rug in the middle. I'm not sure if that would look good - I think I have seen someone do that once. If anyone has any ideas I would love to hear them!

Answer 1

I have dark cherry hardwood floors throughout the entire first level of my home, and I love it. There are area rugs in just about every room and runners in the hallways, which helps break up the hardwood and keep it quieter. Our kitchen connects to (what the builder called) a hearth room - just a room with a fireplace that we use as a casual sitting area; I painted one wall of this room a maroon color, and incorporated browns from the furniture by way of a beige and cream area rug and dark brown accents. The opposite wall from the maroon wall happens to be in the kitchen, which I also painted maroon and the other two walls are a very pale tan. Our cabinets are walnut, and the trim is white, and the combination is very complimentary, and I really like it!

Answer 2

If you are looking for a neutral brown colour "Putty" paint from "Homebase" is such a great colour. Its like a light browny stone kind of shade, very neutral and warm in tone. You should then put a beige coloured carpet in the living room and get a maroon rug and matching cushions. Then the maroon and brown will harmonise really effectivley! :)

Answer 3

I have maroon/burgundy in my living room, too, but i used other colors to break it up somewhat. Try a dusty rose color on surfaces that are going to be right up against the maroon. I also used the tan carpet, but along with the burgundy and dusty rose accents, I used country blue and navy.

Answer 4

Start off with white walls - they can look very sylish and will allow you to experiment with floor coverings without horrendous results. If they start white they are easy to change. White is also the ideal colour to display paintings on so you can introduce colour that way if you find white too cold.