New house paint color suggestions

[ktw]

We need to give our builder our paint colors by Monday. We’re letting our kids pick colors for their bedrooms. If it were up to me, I’d paint the entire rest of the house gray, specifically BM Smoke Ember, because we had our kitchen and family room that color in our last house, and we loved it. In the past, we’ve done different colors in different rooms, and I’ve ended up loving very few of them.

H thinks it’s boring to paint the whole house gray, so he’s suggesting we paint the finished basement (extra spare bedroom, full bath, large rec/workout room) a different color, maybe a blue. I don’t want to hate it, but I get why he thinks it’s boring. Any suggestions on a good color (blue or otherwise) for a finished basement? We actually get a surprising amount of light down there between the door to the outside and the windows, but it is still a basement.

Or any general paint color tips/suggestions for new construction? Thank you!!

[Susie]

I have a blue finished basement area, SW Open Air.  I chose it specifically so I'd feel as much as possible like I was outside when running on my treadmill or riding my bike on the trainer, lol.



I'm sure it's not everyone's cup of tea, but it has made me happy.  That said, we'll be moving soon, and I have no idea what I'll do with the basement in the new house!  

Normally I choose muddier blues, like SW Sleepy Blue or Tradewind, but I sampled them and didn't care for them so much in the basement lighting.

[macmars45]

Lighter green or blue is what I'd go with if you want to do something different. Honestly though I'm with you; I'd just paint it all the same color. Does your H have any ideas?

[ktw]

Apr 18, 2021 10:17:45 GMT -5 macmars45 said:

Lighter green or blue is what I'd go with if you want to do something different. Honestly though I'm with you; I'd just paint it all the same color. Does your H have any ideas?

We’ve been going back and forth all weekend, but I think I’ve come to the conclusion that I need to stop picking paint colors to bring color into a room since I usually don’t really end up loving the finished product, and just stick to neutrals for the walls, and color in items/decorations *in* the rooms. So, I think now we’re going to do the gray (BM smoke embers) throughout the house, except for DD’s room (BM lily lavender), DS’ room (BM Santorini blue) and our master bath (because there’s already a lot of white and gray in the tile) we’ll reuse the Santorini blue. I’m hoping smoke embers isn’t too dark in the basement, but I don’t really want to spend more money to potentially not like whatever I choose as much.

[sju]

This may lead to confusion when dealing with contractors but if you are concerned with the lighting in the basement, maybe you can have the same color but lighter. We painted our main rooms Revere Pewter but at 75%.

[sandandsea]

I would do the color you like on the main areas (make sure it looks the same with the lighting in the new house) and a gray blue in the basement as I think it will accomplish what you both want. I like several of these.


ETA. We painted our whole house SW Mindful Gray with the exception of ds’s bedroom which is blue. Our last house was different colors on every room which I like then for that house but I wanted more congruency in our new to us house and I like it even better.

[Susie]

Aside from my comment about the blue basement... my house (currently for sale) is mostly different colors in each room, and I like it that way.  But I don't think I'll end up painting the new house this way.  It's not new construction, but the entire house is currently painted all one color.  I don't especially care for the color so we'll repaint, but I'm going to do the kitchen, family room, all halls, stairs, laundry room, and foyer all the same greige (TBD which exact one).  The dining room MIGHT be different, and the office MIGHT be different.  Otherwise only bedrooms and bathrooms will be different.

Part of it is that this house seems to have more continuous walls that run room to room, that would make it harder than current house to switch colors.  The other part is that in my current house I have beige wall to wall carpet in a lot of rooms, whereas we're going to put HW floors in a lot of the new house.  That gives me more opportunity to put color on the floor with area rugs.

We use SW colors, so I'm considering:

SW Worldly Gray
SW Accessible Beige

and anything in that neighborhood.  I'm probably going to get some samples of tile for the kitchen backsplash before I make a decision.

[maudefindlay]

You can't go wrong with SW Accessible Beige.

[libbygrl109]

A friend of mine had her entire house painted in SW Sea Salt. It's amazing how it looks slightly different in each room.