PIP - what paint color?

[vanillacourage]

I want to repaint our living room. PIP with the seller's fugly Scarlett O'Hara curtains.

Wood and fireplace stay the same. What paint colors would coordinate? I would love to do a light gray but I don't know how that would look.

ETA - our couch is a dark green and will stay too.

[drloretta]

Creamy yellow, or something in the green family. Or even some blue shades. You could do a lighter color on the walls and a more dramatic shade on the ceiling, or vice versa.

Are you going to paint the fireplace? Does it have that kind of pink tone IRL?

[Deleted]

I would actually restain the wood to be darker and possibly paint the brick and replace the fire place screen or paint the wood a cream color (that seems to be the trend in my area for coiffed ceilings

[hausfrau]

What other colors are you using through the rest of the house? I would look for a color that would make sense with those.

On its own, with a dark green couch and the color of the wood, I think a light, cold blue would look nice.

[ssmjlm]

Since you have a lot of wood and the fireplace brick I would probably pull a light cream, maybe with a hint of taupe or gray and see. You'll probably want to test a couple colors to see how they read.

We painted our living room BM handmade which is a light beige and with the stained trim it read more orange. Once we primed and painted the trim white, it reads more beige.

[dexteroni]

I don't know about light gray with your warm wood. A darker warmer gray *might* work but even then I'm not sure because of the reddish wood color. I was actually going to suggest a muted moss or olive-y green but that's out since you have a green sofa. I would probably explore dark cream / parchment shades. What color is the carpet - is it white, beige, or gray?

[sa]

I would choose Benjamin Moore Nantucket Grey or Camouflage and do two shades deeper on the recessed part of the ceiling. Both colors are in the green family but sort of have a chameleon effect - in that depending on the lighting it can look more green, or tan, or grey.

I hope this doesn't come across as harsh, but with the honey tones of the wood, the brick fireplace, brass hearth and dark green sofa, the room can easily look dated.

I can understand why you'd want to leave the wood, but I would replace the fireplace hearth (perhaps black) and I might suggest adding a more substantial mantle and painting that white/off-white.

To brighten the space I'd probably bring in a lot of ivory accents of different textures (pillows, throws, lamps, etc).

[kaylie]

My suggestion would be to find photos of rooms with oak trim that have wall colors you like online and use the "Chip It" tool on Sherwin Williams website to try to match it. I did it and found these that might look nice:
SW Ruskin Room Green
SW Edamame
SW Keystone Gray
SW Naturel
SW Worldly Gray

[hbomdiggity]

We also have natural wood trim in our home (1920s craftsman). greys can be tricky to work with the brown tones, but definitely doable. two greys we used were SW pussywillow in the living room and SW Morris room grey in a bedroom. we also used SW library pewter (more of a pewter green) in the dining room.

I would also change out/spray paint the brass fireplace cover to something like oil rubbed bronze.

[Deleted]

A warm, subtle yellow/gold tone would be great.

[kelseybelsey]

Jan 1, 2013 12:18:29 GMT -5 @septimus said:

I would actually restain the wood to be darker and possibly paint the brick and replace the fire place screen or paint the wood a cream color (that seems to be the trend in my area for coiffed ceilings

I agree with this. The wood and brick current color seems too pinky for gray.

[dexteroni]

Jan 1, 2013 12:18:29 GMT -5 @septimus said:

I would actually restain the wood to be darker and possibly paint the brick and replace the fire place screen

That would be ideal, but I'm guessing the wood is that same shade throughout her entire house, so she would have to redo it throughout the entire house for it to make sense. But it would be a great way to make the room, and the house, look more up to date. Painting the fireplace and replacing the screen could still help a lot though.

[vanillacourage]

Jan 1, 2013 14:55:49 GMT -5 dexteroni said:

Jan 1, 2013 12:18:29 GMT -5 @septimus said:

I would actually restain the wood to be darker and possibly paint the brick and replace the fire place screen

That would be ideal, but I'm guessing the wood is that same shade throughout her entire house, so she would have to redo it throughout the entire house for it to make sense. .

Ding ding ding! Actually it's not that bad, most of the trim is painted cream. But, there is an adjacent office that has a lot of wood in the same tone, plus the risers on the stairs. So, way too big a project for right now (especially since I've been wanting to just repaint the living room for most of the almost-5 years we've been living here, lol).

Thank you all for the thoughts!