paint color for hallways and stairwells

[ktzmoh]

WHat's your feel on paint color for spaces that are not part of any cohesive specific room? I have a split level, so upstairs a hallway with walls that turn down into a stairwell with no real defined stopping point before it blends into the living spaces downstairs.

I want to paint my upstairs hall - but I"m struggling because that means I also have to paint my stairwell and it's so hard with these walls that don't have a defined stopping point. It's currently this very blah white. I have grey in my living room and am undecided on a color for a larger family room. Would you go with a shade of white? We have white trim, so it would have to be different enough from my white trim to look intentional kwim?

I'm asking because I'm going to the paint store to pick up samples for my powder room project (yay!) and would like to get a few samples for the hallway too. Thoughts?

[mrs.jacinthe]

I've always done the hallway/stairs as a lighter shade of the room it feeds from. So, if the living room is a tan color, the hallway and stairs are a lighter tan/cream color.

[wawa]

My (also split level) living room and upstairs hallway are all the same color. (a warm neutral) But the way our walls are we really couldn't switch colors if we wanted to without a weird transition. The wall of the living room just goes straight up the stairs into the hall with no break.

I don't know that I'd ever bother repainting a white hallway to be a different shade of white because that seems like work for very little reward, but if it just needs to be freshened up I'm sure that'd do the trick.

[Susie]

Mine is currently SW Creamy above the chair rail (same color as the kitchen), and SW Stone Lion below.  I like it, and I also like that when people (with bags), dogs, etc. scuff up the bottom 2-3 feet of the wall along the stairs, I can repaint just that section really easily, instead of having to go all the way up.


Before we put the chair rail up, the whole thing was SW Creamy:

and I have to say it was really blah.  If you had more going on than I have on my walls a cream/white may work better, but it didn't do a ton for me.  Another neutral with a little more to it would be better.  If I hadn't put up a chair rail, I'd have considered repainting something like SW Sandbar, which we used in our MBR, and which I tried below the chair rail but found too light for that purpose:


You could use grays and greiges in pretty much the same way.  I go beige to greige with all my decorating because it's easier than fighting the dog hair battle quite so constantly.  #lazyhousekeeper

[simpsongal]

I have yellow stripes in my hall/foyer, so probably not what you're looking for

[msmerymac]

The stairs come down into my living room and the wall to the left as you walk up the stairs turns into the upstairs hallway. Which meant either painting the whole hallway a color that would blend with the living room, or having an accent wall in the hallway with the other walls painted a different color. Ergo, I decided to just paint the hallway the same color. It's a classic taupe, which looks great in my open living and dining rooms, but the hallway is small, so I don't know how it will turn out, or if it will look dark (it's still in progress).

In fairness, the former owners had this problem with not knowing where to stop the carpet, which is why the carpet that covered the living and dining rooms also went up the stairs all the way into the hallway.

If you do go with white, I would use the same color as the trim. White and then a different shade of white will make one look dirty or off, IMO, unless you go with something REALLY different. Since trim is usually semi gloss or gloss and walls are usually satin/eggshell/matte, I think it will look nice. 

[ktzmoh]

What about cream on white? Hard to pull off? I don't want to make myself nuts and waste $$ on a million paint samples.

[lightbulbsun]

I have a split level and I carried the color from the living room up the stairs to the hallway.  Both spaces are grey, so it's not a crazy color or anything. 

[boiler717]

I have Revere Pewter in my main spaces