Color Buzz

Design Dilemma: Emily’s Living Room, Kitchen and Couches

I recently posted this question on Apartment Therapy:

"I just bought my first place and I'm dying to paint the interior. I need a color for the living room and a color for the kitchen and I need them to look good together.

The biggest issue is my couches. While whether or not they are attractive is debatable, they are definitely a little loud. I need the color of the living room walls to complement the couches, and then I need that color to blend well with the kitchen. I thought about a white kitchen with a color on the door, however I'm not sure if white is going to make the kitchen look too sterile. Any suggestions?"
 
I got some good answers; the most popular one was to use the blue color that is in the couch. I was wondering if you have any suggestions for a hue that would match or compliment this blue.

I've looked at paint samples for hours and I am still unsure how dark/bright to go with the wall color and where to apply the color. The most important thing for me is to brighten the living room up, however I can't see many light colors going with those couches.

I do plan on keeping the couches and I want to incorporate them into the decor without getting stuck with too much of a retro feel. Also, a few people suggested using the blue in both rooms to create a more open space. I'm having trouble picturing that much of one color, although I do like the idea of keeping a unified feeling throughout both rooms.

Any thoughts? Thanks!

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Design Dilemma: Kamonda’s Guest Bedroom

Hi!

I am having problems deciding on a shade of purple for my guest bedroom. The pictures below are of the sham. The bedspread is the same pattern with gray/blue, olive, gold, purple and beige. You’ll also see a picture of the headboard - the wood has a cherry finish and the metal is black.

             

             

             

It is a small room, so I wanted to paint one wall a deeper shade than the other three to make the room appear larger. But I am open to using one color throughout.

The two colors I picked were Valspar Plum Burst, on the wall with the window and bed, and Purple Gala on the other three walls. 

     

Plum Burst 4002-10B   Purple Gala 4002-10A

After reading how hard the color purple is to use in design, I'm second guessing myself and really need some direction.
 
Please Help!
 
Sincerely,
Kamonda

…………………………………

Dear Kamonda,

Don't despair; you're on the right track. We’re really happy you've chosen to go with the deeper color on the windowed wall. Can you center the bed under the window? I could see the room looking very elegant with the bed there and floor-to-ceiling raw silk panels in a camel color. For a shade, try a light champagne color. What color is your trim? You may want to go with Cream in my Coffee or Hopsack. 

                

Cream in my Coffee 3003-10C   Hopsack 3033-10B

Let us know how it turns out!

Thanks,

The Beehives

Color Buzz Poll

Attention all Color Buzz Readers:

We are excited to let you know that today we are launching a new mini survey so you can easily communicate your color and painting ideas and concerns.  Every two weeks, we will put together a new question to help us gain more insight into what you’re thinking and feeling about color. Please take a moment to add your two cents!

Thanks,

The Beehive Girls

Design Dilemma: Jason's Response

Dear Jason,

Thank you for turning to us for color help. The colors you have look like they go together pretty well. There may be other factors that are working against the color scheme as a whole. Just to give you a few color ideas, I would suggest warming up the hallway with a caramelly-neutral like Filoli Antique Lace. This will look nice with the Hopsack and the River Mist. 

                     
Filoli Antique Lace 3002-10B    Hopsack 3003-10B           River Mist 5003-9A   

For the kitchen, you could go in two directions. First, if you want to go with a blue, I would again warm up the space with a color like Palisade Blue. 

                                          
                                         Palisade Blue 4006-3B

If you want to take a totally new direction, I would consider a crisp, clean color like Fresh Pear.  This would keep the flow of the room, but still add some color dimension. 

                                          
                                           Fresh Pear 6007-7C

Let us know if these sound good or if you need more color suggestions.

Thanks!
Ann

Design Dilemma: Jason's House

Hi there!

I am in desperate need of help with the color selection for my hallway and kitchen. I have an open floor plan where my dining room and kitchen are both open and the hallway comes between both rooms. I just think that my current color selection doesn't quite go together.

Right now my dining room is painted with Hopsack.                                
                                 
                                   Hopsack 3003-10B

The powder room has stripes that my wife and I painted by masking off the green base and sponging on a silvery metallic.

      

Also coming off the main hallway are two bedrooms. One is painted with River Mist and the other is painted with Ralph Lauren Chaps Sandstone BRS-31, which is a medium dark brown.

                                      
                                        River Mist 5003-9A

The kitchen, which falls at the end of the hallway, is painted with Woodlawn Silver Brook and my dining room is painted with Hopsack.

    

                         
  Woodlawn Silver Brook 5001-1B          Hopsack 3003-10B

The hallway, which links each of these rooms together, is painted with Dutch Boy's Mackinac Island with white trim throughout. It just seems like the green in my hall doesn't go well with my other colors.

I was wondering if you could help me determine what colors I should paint my hallway and kitchen. My wife and I like contemporary colors but we tend to choose more browns than anything. Also, we don't want any of the colors to be too loud in case we decide to sell the house someday.

Any advice you could give me would be appreciated. Thanks!

Jason

Design Dilemma - Sue's House

Hi Beehive Designers,

My dilemma is picking a shade of beige that looks like what I picked in all lights. I searched through many paint chips and narrowed it down to a few that I really liked. I put the chips on the walls to see how the colors looked in all lights. After a long search I finally picked a color and began painting.

What I found after painting, which was not apparent in the chip, is that the walls in the daylight give off a slight pink hue. I don't hate the color but I wanted something more of a sand color. It is time to paint again and don't want to make the same mistake. I also want to paint a few walls a slightly darker color for contrast. I watch many design shows and they seem to pick a contrasting color, then a shade two chips down for the other walls.

I have asked the paint consultants how I can avoid picking a beige paint with pink hues but they seem to not have the answer. I don't want to spend money on the little jar samples that I can purchase because it can become costly. Any suggestions on a beige or sand color with a contrasting color would be wonderful.

Sincerely,
Susan

..............

Hi Susan,

You have come to the right place!!! We work with beige all the time. I love it. It's a very soothing and warm background color – a great foundation color that lends itself to so many different design directions. A perfect beige is one that won’t pink out on you and has some green in it. Here is a list of a few to try:
               
Shoreline Haze 6008-1B with Jekyll Club Cherokee Tan 6008-2A as accent.

                
       Milestone 6007-1B with Oregon Coast 6007-1C as accent

                
Cliveden Sandstone 3007-10B with Lyndhurst Mushroom 3007-9C as accent.

Let us know how it works out for you...

Design Dilemma - Wayne's Yellow House

Hello,

My wife and I want to update our 20-year-old house with a clean bright look.  We want to use a pale colonial-formal yellow for wall color throughout the house which has white crown moldings and other impressive white woodwork, nine-foot ceilings, etc.  We have various colonial red and blue fabrics and mahogany furniture, gold framed mirrors, etc. throughout the house.  I’m sure you get the picture.

I’ve tried two different shades of “yellow” in two different rooms.  Each shade has looked good on the sample, but turns into a completely different effect when applied to four walls.  One room looks like the old harvest gold kitchen stove in my first apartment years ago, and the other looks like Big Bird under a fluorescent green light.  HELP!  I have the whole house to repaint and carpet and everything is based on getting this new color scheme right for the walls.

I’ve seen the color we’re looking for on TV in a news shot of the Yellow Oval Office in the White House. Here is a photo of the Yellow Oval Office, but we’d like color to be just a bit more yellow and a little less beige.

 

Can you give me some paint chip sample names to consider and to plug into your Painter tool on the Valspar Web site?

Thanks for any help you can offer . . . .
--

Wayne

 

Hi Wayne,

With all eyes on the next occupants of the White House, I like how you are turning there for your inspiration. 

Colors that can deliver the yellow of this East Wing room are:

                            
                 Homey Cream 3007-6B           Honeysuckle Beige 3007-6A 

                                        
                                  Carolina Inn Lobby Yellow 3008-6B

Let us know how it goes...

Ann

Design Dilemma - Peggy's House

Hi Beehives,

My husband and I are about to tackle painting the interior of our house.  We have textured walls, and in keeping with the times, we would like to paint one or two walls in each room with a different paint color.  As we experimented with this, we found that the color would run out of the taped lines.  It would not make a clean line - for example in a corner.

Surely many homes are going through this process.  What is the secret to obtaining a clean fine edge??

Thank you,
Peggy 

 

Design Dilemma - Sigal's Response

Dear Sigal,

We studied your photos for a while. You have a great house with a lot of opportunity to bring beautiful colors in. We have been fortunate enough to work for many years with the very talented designer, Victoria Hagan. You may want to check out her website. She works a great deal with the palette you are describing: cool blues, ivories, chocolate browns. The overall look of this palette can be extremely sophisticated. One characteristic you get from working with cool colors is the sense of expansion.

For your wainscoting, definitely go with a crisp white. Try Anthem White in semi-gloss. This will give you a clean fresh look.                               

Azure Snow is a beautiful color to paint the living room, and I would include the wall with the front door. From there I would run it along the wall with the two windows then along the wall of the fireplace and onto the wall in front of the dining room. I would end at the corner where it meets the stairs.

                                     
                                         Azure Snow 5001-1A 

Design Dilemma - Sigal's House

Hi Beehives,

Please help!  I’m feeling overwhelmed, paralyzed, and unable to make color choices…

My husband and I bought our house five years ago.  At the time, I was pregnant with our second son, so all we managed to do was quickly take down some terrible wallpaper in the kitchen/family room.

Now with my sons getting older, we have the time to make some more changes. One of the first changes needs to be paint, but I’m scared so I’ve done nothing.

Why?  First, I find that I’m not good at choosing colors in general – I chose a terrible lemony shade of yellow for the kitchen and I don’t even like yellow.  Second, with my entryway being so tall (18 foot ceilings) and open to the living room, dining room, and upstairs hall, I find that I’m not able to see which colors I should choose, how many colors, and where to have each color begin and end.  And third, having all this painting done is going to be really expensive (I’ve gotten estimates), so I really would like to make the right decision the first time and not regret my choices, as I have with our lemony kitchen.

I know what my priorities are and I think I know the types of colors that make me happy in theory.  If I told you these, and you looked at photos of my home, would you be able to point me in the right direction?