Re-decorating: Looking to bounce ideas off someone!

I've been picking out paint colors to HOPEFULLY start adding some color to my house in the next few weeks. I have white walls everywhere but my daughter's room and it's driving me nuts! When DH and I got married I finished my Associates degree in Interior Design. The whiteness everywhere and lack of window treatments is driving me insane!!

Soooo.....who wants to hear what I've got planned? (If you don't have time to read my reasoning; feel free to just check the links for my colors and weigh in!)

My kitchen/dining areas are open to each other in an "L" shape. They also open to my living room by one 5' opening in the dining area and a 3' hallway that puts the laundry room in the middle of all that. My living room also opens to the foyer and hallway leading to the bedrooms. So the back wall of the livingroom extends all the way into the kitchen. This is why I've had some trouble deciding what to do. The rooms need to flow together; but I want them to be distinct at the same time.

I've narrowed my paint choices down to 4 swatches. I want to install a chair rail throughout. For the kitchen area I've chosen 2 shades of a dark purple for the bottom and 2 neutrals for the top. This is my fav purple: http://www.lowes.com/pd_144549-86-C4...0051&langId=-1. My 2nd choice is: http://www.lowes.com/pd_144549-86-D4...erry&facetInfo=.

The top of the walls would either be my fav: http://www.lowes.com/pd_144501-86-D1...0051&langId=-1 or my "safe" 2nd choice: http://www.lowes.com/pd_144501-86-D1...0051&langId=-1.

I love the Stonington because it's a neutral gray vs the warmth of the classic khaki. I love the Purple Coneflower; I'm just afraid DH won't. I plan to keep the trim white for now. So those colors need to blend with my living room AND the foyer/hallway.

So I've decided to use a green in the living room and do 2 neutrals in the hallway/foyer. That way I can bring green accents into the kitchen and purple into the living room. So my green choices are #1: Cavern Moss: http://www.lowes.com/pd_144532-86-C6...0051&langId=-1 or #2: Green Tea Leaf: http://www.lowes.com/pd_144532-86-D6...leaf&facetInfo=.

I'm leaning toward the Green Tea Leaf because it is on the cooler/gray side of green which blends nicely with my other favs. But then the Cavern Moss one is better with the Khaki; which is just a safe choice all around.

I want light colored window treatments in the living room and possibly green in the kitchen/dining areas. Oh....the paint needs to look good with those too of course!

For the chair rail I'm considering using a simple mullion instead of the traditional chair rail: http://www.lowes.com/pd_3285-1487-95...lion&facetInfo=. My reasoning is that it has the flat profile to hopefully take less of a beating than something that extends farther out. But there is also this: http://www.lowes.com/pd_715-19-52970...%7C0&facetInfo=.

So whatcha think? Did you survive my lengthy explanation? (Poll coming shortly)

Without knowing what the lighting is like in your house, it's hard for me to say which would look best. While I think the blackberry is very rich,deep, if the room is already dark, this might not be the right choice.

As for the Stone vs khaki....it appears as though there is a lot of yellow in the khaki so i'm thinking it might not be as 'nuetral'as the stone.

And without question, the tea green is what I would choose.

This may not make sense but to me, the khaki, blackberry and moss are so deep there just isn't much 'depth' to the pallete with them. To me, the other colors lend themselves to a more nuetral, flowing pallete.

As for chair rail....I'm not a big fan of it but, if you are going to do it, do something unexpected. I'd go with the non-traditional myself.

I'm really glad I'm taking a break from remodeling/decorating.

I know the feeling with the white walls... ours are all beige and I HAAATTEEEE it... oh well, hopefully one day I can paint!
I LOVE the blackberry and stone combo. As well as the stone and green tea!

I may get your opinion on some colors sometime!

Hehe thanks!

The lighting in the house during the day is very good...nice and bright. I also have decent lighting for the kitchen area at night and use a few floor lamps in the living room. My only problem is that I goofed when I bought fluorescent bulbs for the kitchen last time and got the cool ones instead of the warm ones. So I have half warm and half cool. I'd love to just change the fixture; but it does provide good light to work with! And I'm not looking to install recessed lighting or anything like that yet.

Originally Posted by capt_jordi

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I LOVE the blackberry and stone combo. As well as the stone and green tea!

Click to expand...

Those are the combos I voted for. The stone is more neutral than the khaki, IMO. I'm a bit adverse to purple tones, so prefer the blackberry to the coneflower. It would probably be easier to accent, too. Since the blackberry has a cooler undertone, the green tea goes better with it than the moss.

Does that make sense?

While I really love the coneflower, it might be too much on the walls, even with the neutral colors; it depends on how much lighting you have in the room (my biggest thing is lighting....I have to have a lot of light). I like the green tea; we used a color very similar to that in our computer room and it's beautiful.

I'm not a big fan of chair rails, but it depends on the type of house you have, too. My sister has a huge very old 3-story house that they're constantly renovating. She did chair railing and it looked great because it matched the house.

I would so love to see pictures of everything when it's done!

Oh you have been busy - well, I guess the real work is still ahead! Sorry, but I'm just so glad it's not me doing all the painting for once.

I love the green tea and blackberry colours (maybe you should get people to vote on a full stomach), both with Stonington. I really like the depth in all those colours. The coneflower was too purpley for my liking, and the khaki too yellow.
I like that mullion for the chair rail. It's different and looks classy IMO.
You must put up before & after pics please!

I like the moss green/8'L Prefinished White Chair Rail Moulding /Stonington /Blackberry

I like Stone, Blackberry and Green Tea. Will you paint my bathroom when it's done?

Thanks ladies! I deff think I'm going stonington. But I've looked at both colors of the purple in daylight and at night and I'm thinking I'm going Coneflower! It is bolder in a way; but I think I like that. I might go buy the test samples of them so I can get a better look though.

The greens are still up in the air. I might have to wait on those till I find window treatments.

So much work to do but I love this kind of work! DH and I have done a lot of painting together over the years and I did enough as a teen too. I do the edging and he does the rolling. Were gonna need a babysitter though!

I'll deff post pics when it's done! I was going to post some pics of the house from when we first moved in but they are on another computer....and it's too messy to take pics of now.

Is it possible to use the coneflower on just one wall, maybe a larger wall? And then use the blackberry on the remaining walls? Or would the overall effect be too dark?

We have our living room walls painted a very, very light grey color. Our kitchen is painted a creamy yellow. There is a main wall that runs from the living room right into the kitchen and that wall is painted cranberry red. Sounds silly, right? But that wall works! It works with the light grey in the living room and also works beautifully with the cream yellow in the kitchen...it was just the perfect color. So many people have compliemented us on that cranberry color....it just seems to add an oomph! to the rooms.

Whatever you decide, I know it's going to look great.

I'm just going to do below the chair rail in the coneflower and green. I don't want to weigh the rooms down. I want to add "oomph" but not overwhelm the space. I'll keep the rest of the walls done in the Stonington.

Anyone who walks into my kitchen will think I'm a nut...I taped all the paint chips to post it notes and I keep arranging them to look at them in different lights and what not.