Help my color scheme not suck.

October 30, 2006 5:35 AM

Color scheme help: This weekend I got bold with my interior colors, painting two adjacent rooms two colors I love. The problem is making it all work.

Picture a long rectangle. 20% of the long rectangle is the dining room, 30% is the kitchen/breakfast area, and 50% is the family room with a valuted ceiling. Sitting in the family room you can see all of the kitchen and a portion of the dining room.

I painted the kitchen a gorgeous bold rusty orange color, which looks terrific with the white cabinets and charcoal countertops. The dining room is a strong red -- Benjamin Moore "Million Dollar Red," in fact, which you can see here; it's the red room with all the pictures in it about halfway down the page.

So. I am crazy about both of these colors individually, but now that I'm seeing them together in the same glance, I'm not so sure they work together. The white door frames and molding do help pull it together somewhat, but I need to make this section of the house look a bit more coherent. Is there a color I could paint the family room that would help everything mesh better? Right now the family room is flat white and completely undecorated, so this is my best chance to "make it work" (tm Tim Gunn). Keep in mind that the family room is a big room, with a vaulted ceiling, fireplace, and lots of windows. The height of the ceilings mean I'll have to hire professionals to paint it, so once I pick a color I'm stuck with it for a good long while. I'll be buying a couch in the next few weeks, so my options as far as type/color fabric for that are completely open as well.

My taste leans toward "sophisticated but comfortable;" I'm a fan of Pottery Barn, Crate & Barrel, etc. I'm in the northeast so a southwesty scheme is pretty much out. Not a fan of floral prints or anything overtly girly. Pulling colors and decorative elements from Middle-eastern and Indian influences is a possibility, but I do want to avoid it being too trendy or over-decorated, if that makes any sense.

posted by shiu mai baby to home & garden (15 comments total)

I would paint the living room either something like the copely grey (it doesn't look grey, it looks warm) or the one called something like greenbriar beige. Either way, go with a warm neutral and then decorate with red and rust accents to pull the whole place together.
posted by stormygrey at 5:56 AM on October 30, 2006

I thought a dark teal might be lovely, but may be too much, and too southwest-y. I agree with stormygrey--pick a neutral tone, and pull in art and accessories
with spicy tones. I think a rich caramel color may work also.

I would frame art and mirrors with the same color frames to form a more cohesive look. Black laquered wooden frames would look great against the orange and red.

You could always put a glaze on top of the red to tone it down, maybe mix in a touch of the rusty orange in your glaze. Definitely practice and read up on glazing. I have tried faux painting and it's easier than it looks. Good luck.
posted by LoriFLA at 6:27 AM on October 30, 2006

I also want to add that I have design dilemmas of my own, but can dish out advice so easily to others.
posted by LoriFLA at 6:30 AM on October 30, 2006

Two bits of advice:

1) Have you thought about adding partitions between the rooms? If it is a just a big space this would probably impracticle but if you have some walls with open arches it might work.

2) You could paint just a portion of the vaulted living room. This would, in effect, let you test the way a new color would look against the kitchen and dining area.
posted by oddman at 6:43 AM on October 30, 2006

I'm not quite clear on the order of the rooms (and therefore the color progression to be considered). Is the now orange kitchen in the middle, between the very red dining room on the one end of the rectangle, and the unpainted (white) living room on the other end of the rectangle? I'd guess this is the case, as you say you can see the whole kitchen and part of the dining room from the living room, but it could be kitchen, dining room, living room, too, I suppose.

In the first (and probable) room arrangement, and taking stormygrey's idea for a warm neutral base in the living room, you have a red-orange-beige range in a kind of relentless color progression. That doesn't really solve the question of whether your red and orange colors work in adjacent spaces, and I suspect that until you get that balance to be really good, anything you do in the living room is likely to be unsatisfactory and a further complication. The change could be as little as painting an end wall in the dining room something other than your million dollar red, as it would be the major thing seen from the kitchen and living room. And yet, from within the dining room, you'd still have your strong red, assuming that would work for you with the view into the kitchen and living room beyond.

So, if 'twere me, I'd work that out, before considering colors for the living room. I suspect that you might wind up changing the red, as that is a pretty strong color for a dining room. If you did that, you'd have far less pressure on choosing living room color.
posted by paulsc at 7:06 AM on October 30, 2006

Gold/caramel
posted by thirteenkiller at 7:07 AM on October 30, 2006

There are a good amount of online flash apps to help you visualize color groups, here is one that helped us. Not perfect, but can get you in the ballpark maybe.
posted by ernie at 7:08 AM on October 30, 2006

I like the thought of the warm grays or beiges; neutral enough to handle any crazy-assed scheme I might dream up. Doing that, would it be insane, then, to invest in a red couch?

Oddman: the dining room is connected to the kitchen via a door-less doorway. The kitchen and family room are technically one big room, but the builder did a good job of visually separating them: the kitchen/breakfast area has a flat ceiling while the family room is vaulted, and there's a half-wall separating the breakfast area from the family room. I think any further partitions would make the space too boxy.
posted by shiu mai baby at 7:08 AM on October 30, 2006

i agree w/ the first poster: warm neutral w/ warm accents or decorations; a cream might even work.
posted by azriel2257 at 7:14 AM on October 30, 2006

I like LoriFLA's idea of a spicy caramel color; I think that would work well with what you've got so far. As for tying it all in, you'll definitely want to do it with textiles and accessories. Generally decorators recommend choosing a textile for the room first (curtains, rug, etc.) and then pulling the wall color out of that. But since you've done it the other way, you'll need to find some fabrics to go with what you've got. I don't think you'l have a problem finding textiles to match red; red dining rooms are a massively popular trend right now.

Take your paint swatches to the store and see what you can find that will work with both the red and the orange, and you might be able to pull a neutral color out of the fabric for the family room, and an accent color for accessories. I'm thinking a pale celery green might look good - a vase here, a picture frame there, etc. Or maybe a creamy / parchmenty color to sort of calm things down.

Also, if you have any photos or even an approximation of the floor plan, that would help immensely.
posted by boomchicka at 7:16 AM on October 30, 2006

OK your last comment helps. I think it would not be insane to invest in a red piece of furniture, but I don't know if you want to do it with the sofa. If you find one you like, great, but if not, an ottoman, side chair, or other accents will also help tie the red in, and won't bind you to a red color scheme as much as a sofa will if you ever decide to paint the dining room.
posted by boomchicka at 7:18 AM on October 30, 2006

paulsc: your guess was correct -- the room progression is dining room -> kitchen -> family room.
posted by shiu mai baby at 7:23 AM on October 30, 2006

Don't invest in a red couch. Get your couch in a neutral and if you really want it red, get a slipcover. That way if you redecorate later, or change your color scheme, you're not stuck with something that might not go. I'd start with red throw pillows, and if that's not bold enough, work your way up to the slipcover. I'd also check out Pier 1 for accessories. They do the ethnic without over-trendy thing fairly well. I'd also vote for a caramel color, leaning towards yellow. You'll have a whole red - orange - yellow spectrum thing going on. Also make sure to spread your wall colors through the whole space with accessories in the same colors - that's what will really tie things together.
posted by booksherpa at 8:05 AM on October 30, 2006

Thanks, all, for the help. I'll post a picture tonight when I'm home, just in case actually seeing the room might make it clearer.

And thanks also for talking my foolish self out of a red couch. It's one of those ideas that's great in theory, but not so much in practice -- especially two years down the road when I'm tired of it all and have a new-found passion for celadon.
posted by shiu mai baby at 8:37 AM on October 30, 2006

Also, LoriFla: thank you for opening my eyes to the wonder of searching by color on ArtSelect. What a brilliant idea.
posted by shiu mai baby at 9:36 AM on October 30, 2006