help design DH's office please!

[grey56]

DH is re-refinishing our basement, taking it from one giant room to several smaller rooms.  One room will be his office (he works from home). 

The walls are that fake cheap paneling.  He has already primed them (two coats) and is waiting for me to choose a paint color.  I picked a light blue last night, but a quick sample on the wall made DH think it was too "baby" and "nursery" for his manly office.  We do want a lighter color since it's a basement, and he spends his entire day down there working, etc.

He has the Hemnes desk in this color:


And a faux leather chair with nailheads, similar to this:




And....that's pretty much it. 

The floors are painted concrete, just the off-the-shelf grey.  It's a cool grey.  I put some of my fav grey paint swatches against it, and they made the floor look blue/purple. 

I was thinking of a khaki color?  Sort of greenish tan?  That's manly but light. 

Needs to be a Behr color.

Any ideas?  Thanks!

[boiler717]

Have you purchased a rug yet? I'm assuming with concrete floors you are thinking about a big area rug. I'd probably pull a color out of there. How set are you on the grey floor? It sounds like there are some strong purple undertones, so you may want to consider painting it a dark brown. I think your thoughts of green or tan are good, and staying very light in color because of the basement and lack of natural light is smart.

Also, HD will color match any color. So if you are wanting to use Behr paint you can find a SW or BM color that you like.

I really like the desk and the chair. I think it's a great jumping off point for a manly office.

[grey56]

Hmm, I really like the idea of pulling a color from a rug. We have a rug from upstairs that I hate, he could have that one, ha! I'll ask and see what he thinks! He hasn't painted the floor yet in that room, but he has in the other room he already finished. I wanted the floors to all be the same color. I'll see if he's open to repainting the floor of the first room - it's only one room, and if the color is better all around then I'd rather know now!

Grey is my fav color so I think DH just gravitates to grey b/c he figures I will like it. Which I do....I'm just getting pickier. :-)

Thanks for the suggestion. Any ideas where to look for a rug locally? Are the rugs from Home Goods and places like those any good?

[boiler717]

Home Goods is great, and I've also had good luck with HomeDepot rugs, too.

[ssmjlm]

What about a gray/green? Might help with the undertones of the floor. Although I agree, a nice area rug could probably negate any of the undertones of the concrete and you can just pick a color from the rug.

I painted our hall bath SW Contented which is a green with gray undertones. (We're definitely going through a gray phase in our house.)

[grey56]

boiler, thanks for the suggestion of going off colors in a rug! We went to Home Goods (brand new one near our house, huge selection!) and DH chose a light blue Oriental style rug, which we then took over to Home Depot and selected a beige-tan from one of the flower patterns on the rug. He's going to keep going with the grey floor paint, but the rug we got will leave ~1 foot of floor showing around the edge of the room, so it will be ok! Plus, the rug is blue so it would probably look good with the bluish undertones of the grey floor paint. Anyway, I am really excited and can't wait for DH to paint today!! Thanks again for the idea. :-)

I will add, DH originally had his rug choices narrowed down to a red Oriental style rug and another horrific black and baby-poo colored rug. I argued that we should choose a rug that sort of "goes" with the rest of our house, should we decide to rearrange rooms and move the rug elsewhere. Thank goodness he bought that. That black and poo rug was hideous (and on wicked clearance....wonder why!).

[boiler717]

Yay, I'm glad it worked! I can't wait to see pics when it's done.