Good paint color for a dark room?

[Ellie'sMom]

I need some suggestions. We recently bought this house and the previous owner had made some, um, bold color choices. We repainted the purple and lavender living room a nice warm cream color. The sun streams in, and I just love how it looks. I liked it so much I decided to use the same color for our family room which was a very pale yellow/green (dh calls it "sinusitis colored", if that helps you envision it). I didn't find the color that objectionable, but we have lots of rich browns and reds in our furniture, rugs and art and I just didn't think it would go. I have just out on a coat of primer and a coat of the cream color, and I don't like it. This room is pretty dark and the walls just look white.

Anyone have ideas for a relatively neutral color that will work in a dark room? We are putting a solatube in to the adjoining kitchen which should help some with the light situation.

Oh, and for the moment, the adjoining kitchen is painted a bright raspberry red color. I like color, but this house is like living in a box of crayons!

TIA!

[doubledutch]

before reading your full post (just from the title) i was thinking a soft, pale yellow - like a candle-light or champagne color. it sounds like that would be close enough to the primer & single coat of cream that you've already done, that it wouldn't be like starting over. it would just give it a bit more color.

[sunnysandiegan]

I'm probably the wrong person to ask. One of our neighbors stood in our upstairs hallway where he could see all five spaces at once and said, "It's like a bag of Skittles."

To clarify, though, our colors are not Skittle-ish per se. He just meant there is a lot of color and every space was a different color.

We have a small, no natural light powder room and I painted it "cranberry splash", which goes against the old adage of painting a small, dark room a light color. It looks beautiful!

When we were choosing paint colors, our living room was the room with the least natural light of the rooms WITH natural lighting. We ended up painting all the rooms that flow into each other without any doors the same color: Behr Innocence. (The paint is not Behr brand, however.) It is a light creamy-peach-yellow color in our house. Cream to the average person, but for those who know color it is not cream or off-white. It has just enough color that it looks good with pure white trim.

Good luck!

[luv-my-boys]

we had a very similar problem we had painted the living room a nice lighter taupe and wanted to use the same in the dining rm since its adjoining and the same "color family" furniture wise. It looked totally washed out in that room as well due to lighting. We ended up going to the paint store and looking at the paint swatches and choosing a color on the same palatte but a few shades darker. Honestly I wouldnt have thought to go darker but because of the lighting it really sets the color off and does look nice, plus it looks taupe and not white.

[Jackies Ladybug]

just get the color tinted a bit darker, if you look at a color swatch there will be different grades, all have the same color, the lighter ones just have more white. that way you wont have to worry about issues with it clashing.
this is a trick that model home designers use. usually they do the living room and kitchen in the lighter shade, the dining and bedrooms in the darker shade and sometimes will do an accent wall somewhere that is one shade darker than the dining color.

hope that helps!

[Ellie'sMom]

Thanks for the great ideas! I think going with a stronger color from the same color family is just the thing. I will check out paint tomorrow.

If you have any other colors that you particularly love, feel free to suggest them. We still have to paint the room shared by my twin, 4 year old boys (currently dark brown with a wide hot pink and white border) and our very small bedroom (now a dark wine color). I am leaning towards cooler colors in that part of the house, like sage green or a pale grey-blue.

[RiverSky]

On home decorating shows, I always see them put green on the walls when people have reds and browns in their furniture and it looks lovely. I'd choose a light green, so that the reds pop. Otherwise, a medium beige with white or cream trim might look nice.

[Jackies Ladybug]

i use a color called jungle chameleon, you can go to any hardware store and they'll show it to you.
i LOVE that color. its a really beautiful soft neutral green. really earthy but not muddy looking.