Choosing Living Room
paint colors is one of the important starting points
of the living room painting idea along with the right
type of paint for your living room walls, ceilings and
window and door trims. You can get the clues for the
color scheme of your living room from its furniture,
window treatments and accessories.
The colors look different in
different lights, in daytime and at night, so you may have use
color chips and observe them in all possible scenarios to be sure
that you get the desired results. If you are still not sure about
the paint color choice for your living room, test it on a small
part of the wall and see how it looks like.
This will also tell you exactly what the paint will look like
because the color swatches and the actual shade that turns up
after painting the walls may slightly differ. You can lend an open
and airy look to your living room by installing a chair rail in
the room and then paint the lower portion of the wall in a darker
color than the wall above the chair rail. If you want to hide
unattractive trim work in your living room or want a uniform
monochromatic look to make it feel more spacious, paint the
trimmings, moulds and the walls of the living room in the same
color. However, if you want to add bold colors as accents to your
room or highlight some attractive trim work in your living room,
you can use a paint shade lighter or darker than those of the
walls to catch the viewer's attention.
While choosing the paint color for your living room, keep in mind
that colors do not always look same on the walls as they do in
color charts of the paint companies. Bright and solid colors can
appear lighter or darker than what you had intended depending on
their surrounding colors and the amount of light in the area.
Usually, colors appear darker than they really are over a larger
surface area, so it is advisable to choose a shade or two lighter
than the paint color you want in your living room. If the color
still appears bolder after painting the living room, you can mute
it down by covering the walls with a lighter shade of paint using
the paint techniques such as rag rolling, sponging and color
washing.
Strong and warm colors such as reds, oranges and yellows seem to
advance and close a space, making the living room look cozier and
more welcoming. Blues, greens and violets are known as cool colors
and seem to recede and make a room look larger. However, the
darkest shades of even the cool colors such as navy blue and
hunter green make the living room look small. This is the reason
that popular wall colors for the small living rooms are whites or
light neutral colors such as beiges and caramels to make them
appear larger. Normally, people paint their living room ceilings
in white or off-white to make them look higher and give an airy
feeling to the living room.
Medium to dark colors lower the ceiling visually and is good to be
used in living rooms that have very high ceilings to make them
look cozier. While in small and lower living rooms with ceilings
painted in medium and dark colors will look like a dark cave.
Choose a happy color that makes your feel comfortable throughout
the day in your living room. The popular living room color scheme
often uses soft and pastel paint colors in eggshell finish. The
living rooms with ample natural light may use darker colors but
they should be perfectly balanced with lighter colors so that the
room doesn't look too dreary and dark. You may get the inspiration
for the living room color scheme from your favorite piece of
furniture that dominates your living space by taking it as to be
the core color element and working on other colors around it.
