Favorite paint colors to tone down yellow?

[zoemay06]

Hi all, infrequent poster here but I'd love to get your input. We've lived in our house for almost 2 years and are finally getting ready to painting the main living area, yay! We have an open floorplan with yellowish maple cabinets, beigeish countertops and honeyish oak floors. I had been planning to paint the walls a warm beige like SW Sundew or Paper Lantern so as not to accentuate all the yellow wood tones but now I think that would be yellow overload. What else would work well to tone down yellow? I know blues and greens are out...but what about a grey?

Picking the paint color is the only thing holding us back at this point but I feel clueless and indecisive. We'll probably redo the floors in the next year or two and do just a clear finish over the natural wood if that makes any difference.

Thanks!

[mrs.jacinthe]

Why are blues and greens out?

[zoemay06]

Feb 25, 2013 14:56:00 GMT -5 mrs.jacinthe said:

Why are blues and greens out?

Because I feel like they would make the yellow stand out even more, instead of visually neutralizing it. But maybe I'm wrong?

[zoemay06]

Feb 25, 2013 15:00:20 GMT -5 FormerlyRR said:

When you say maple, is it the light natural maple or does it have a stain or glaze on it? Sounds like it is natural since your eye sees it as yellow. Greens are lovely to tone down a lot of wood, a sagey green would work well. Houzz has tons of pictures, do a search for maple cabinets with green walls for some examples. 

Thanks, I'll check it out. They're natural maple, like this (not our kitchen obvs):

[mrs.jacinthe]

Yes, certain blues and greens would actually go a long way to neutralize that. You don't want a super-saturated color, more of an earth tone. I think it would look lovely with a sagey green, like PP mentioned.

[niknik]

I like blues. Lighter navy tones. I have seen some great sagey greens too. I used BM Saybrook Sage in my home and had light mapley tones in the floor in that room.

[heygrey]

It's less about the colour and more about picking something with warm undertones. Sage would work, a red (if you want something bold), a French grey or greige.