However, if you had painted the room above based on this image (below) you would definitely not be happy at this moment. There is a significant amount of reflection from the very red wood floor going on here and often wood trim requires a deeper colour depending on what colour it is.Īnd here is a lovely decorated room painted Pale Oak (below) with the colour repeated in the artwork and decor. It’s looking a bit pasty and well, pink, with the cherry trim in this empty, freshly painted room (below). Here is BM Pale Oak, a pale greige with a taupe undertone, which is a very popular neutral right now. A paint colour will never be magical without relating well to your furniture, finishes, and décor, no matter what people on Houzz have to say about it. What’s missing when you’re looking up paint colours online is the same thing that’s missing when you’re staring at a paint chip or a freshly painted but empty room:Ĭontext is everything. You’re trying to discern the relative virtues and flaws of this hue you’ve just committed to.ĭo you see a hint of pea soup? A whiff of smog? Weird fleshiness? Is it too dark? Too pasty? Does it fill you with serenity and a sense of well being? Probably not, because how can you be sure it’s right? Now you’re staring at four empty, freshly painted walls, squinting and tilting your head, and turning the lights on and off. So, eventually, after spending days upon hours online researching paint colours, you take the plunge and paint your room the-colour-somebody-on-the-internet declares absolutely foolproof (and we know there’s no such thing right?). Something you will still need to add to your room once it’s painted. And the room that you are admiring has a look and a feel. However, Joanna Gaines or Laura Bohn (below) have not been to your house. Whoa! Doesn’t that just make you nod your head and want to head directly to the paint store like some kind of decorating zombie?Īnd who doesn’t want high ceilings from a colour that “goes with everything”? It creates this serene atmosphere.” Laura Bohn, paint by Sherwin Williams The darker colour grounds the room, and then the lighter runs right up to the ceiling and makes it feel higher. “These grays are just the calmest thing in the world, and the green in them means they go with everything. Sensible Hue SW 6198 and Aloof Gray SW 6197

We’ve all seen those seductive articles that create mystique around this paint colour or that, like this below:

They look to their favorite designers, bloggers, Pinterest and Houzz for help with finding that elusive perfect paint colour.Īnd I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that the feature at the beginning of every House Beautiful issue where they list designers favourite paint colours along with the description is their most popular. People constantly poll each other online about their thoughts on this colour or that. They know that if a celebrity designer comes out with a list of their favourite shades of white or grey or fill-in-the-blank-here-paint-colours, that people will grasp onto those brochures and lists like a life raft, and then bottom line, gallons of paint will be sold, which is the whole point right? So I asked Tricia to put together this post so that we could clear this up perhaps more profoundly than I have in previous posts: A clean colour will look bad with a more muted or dirty colour, a dirty colour will make a clean colour look bad, if your trim is too dark and your wall colour is too light, your trim will look dirty, but that same trim with a dark colour will be perfect, the list goes on. Every colour in the world is ugly in the wrong context. There is no such thing as the perfect colour. Tricia and I were talking about a thread on a forum where a designer was very concerned over a paint colour she had just specified for one of her clients when she started searching online and reading what others were saying about the same colour.

Today’s guest post is by Tricia Firmaniuk, my eDesign Director.

Kilim beige vs accessible beige