Need help with choosing a paint color!?

Question

Hi, I have a raised ranch with cathedral ceilings in the living room, so my hallway, entryway, dining room and living room all are tied into one another. I need to paint and can't decide what color to go with. I have a light beige couch, but my fabric windowshade for a very large window is maroon and expensive to change so I want to work around that. I hate white, I want some color, but I think beige with the beige couch will be too blah. I also don't want the room to look small, any suggestions are welcome!

Answer 1

I can certainly understand not wanting white or beige. I live in apartments for seven years & I was not permitted to paint, and I the decor was always so boring!

How would you feel about a red-gold color, like "Rosettee" by Sherwin Williams? It would coordinate well with the maroon window treatments & beige sofa. Or if you want something a little different, check out "tranquil aqua." It would also look fab with the maroon & beige, but it would also add tons of visual interest.

Answer 2

Sage green. Green makes people think of life and coziness. Also, green is the new brown... it goes with lotssss of other colors, so it will not limit you.

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Here is the 'Glidden paint site'... use this to test out even more colors. You will LOVE this site. It is great.


http://www.glidden.com/visualizer/visualizer.html?imagecode=usliving_012
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The beige sofa is fine. The sage green will compliment it and actually bring out the softness of the beige.

For accessories you could then go with deep dark woods that would add some class and elegance to the room. Dark woods are always visually appealing... especially in a large bright room. They anchor the room and give it depth.

Dont forget to use dark colored wooden baskets to add a soft touch to the room. These can be used for storage, or to put a nice grouping of glass bottles in....or to put in some umbrellas or walking sticks next to a door.

To add color, keep the 'colors' soft and muted. No wild bright colors. Wild bold colors seem like a good idea at first, but soon become overwhelming. Use differing colors of brown paired with greens to stay within the color pallet. Add some soft oranges, (some oranges are nearly brown), just look on color charts to find the appropriate shades of orange to match the colors in your room.

To help you with this.... design a color wheel. This is very simple to do. Just take a board and make squares on it. Put items that match the color of your room on this small board. This way, you can have the colors all right next to each other so you can evaluate how items will look when put together in the room.
You can use this tool when you go shopping to quickly evaluate if you should purchase an item. Even ask people in the store if they think that item will match the colors on your wheel.
It helps tremendously to take the guess work out of decorating. It will keep you from buying and returning things over and over.

Good luck with your room. :o)

Answer 3

to avoid purchasing the wrong color, it's a good idea to invest in large paint chips (18"x18") .....they are about 4 dollars each but they give you a good sense of color on a larger expanse and you can study and evaluate the color with different lighting at different times during the day including artificial lighting. (if you dont want to spend on chips use a solid towel or solid tablecloth or solid showercurtain or solid fabric or even a Tshirt because color truly needs to be seen on an expanse.) ... feel free to use those little free chips but be aware those little chips can fool the eye and at worse be costly and aggravating in time and money spent... remember nowadays stores like Lowe's and even some good hardware stores offer color matching with a scanner gun and a paint "computer". all you need to do is bring in your SOLID sample (no pattern!) for the clerk to scan, the larger the better. you can also invest in white boards and those little "sample jars" but i think that method's more expensive than the large chips method. happy painting and best wishes for a great look. ps you can also look at pages out of wallpaper books NOT to buy wallpaper but because a page is large enough to visually substitute as a "large chip" if the page is not too patterned.

Answer 4

i just did this, i have a beige sofa, hardwood floors. i did a darker orange color. its made by Behr, its called Light Copper. it looks really great like something out of a magazine. and i use maroon as my accent color. so its seems to be the same color scheme as mine.

Answer 5

Cream.
a very light shade of brown; almost tan.
maybe very pale gray could work too...
the burnt orange idea also seems nice.

i wouldn't go with the green if i were you.

Answer 6

Burnt orange would look awesome!