painting 2 rooms

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todd_k

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I need some painting advice. My living room and eat-in kitchen share 1 wall. this 1 wall is the back wall of the house and along this wall there are 2 windows in the living room, the back door, and then 2 windows in the kitchen. We don't want to paint both the living room and kitchen the same color. What can we do? We were hoping to do the downstairs in reds, oranges, and yellows. The dining room will be a red/wine color, I think the name of the paint is Washington Apple (not that it matters).
 
So, it's all one continuous wall, is it two "rooms" but with an open floor plan so it's really just one space? Sorry, I'm having a hard time visualizing...
 
we just painted one of our bedrooms: one wall is red and the other three are a cream color, the trim on the red was painted the cream color and vice-versa for the cream wall. this gave the room a very country feel.

it goes well with either dark or light wood furniture
 
What color do you want to do the kitchen in? One shared wall could be a complimentary color without making the whole kitchen that color. For example, if you want the kitchen yellow, paint it yellow. If the living room is orange, that shared wall could be yellow, orange, red, or another complimentary color. If you look on a color wheel at the paint store, you can choose the colors you like and make the one shared wall any color you want to as long as the colors are complimentary. If the downstairs is going to be shades of red, yellow and orange, any colors with those tones (even beige-y colors with warm undertones) will work for that shared wall. I would go "less bold" on that shared wall, and use the other walls in both rooms for the contrast colors. Since you have all those openings on that wall (windows and doors), just about any complimentary color you like would work, It's not going to be a long blank wall of color, anyway.

Lorena
 
SWMBO is really good with the interior paint schemes, I'll ask her about it when I get home tonight.

Are you moved in now? If so congrats.
 
the_bird said:
So, it's all one continuous wall, is it two "rooms" but with an open floor plan so it's really just one space? Sorry, I'm having a hard time visualizing...

They are 2 rooms but are mostly seperated by just the rear stairs. It is not open. I tried drawing a picture but it just didn't look any good. I'll see if I can work on something today.

What color do you want to do the kitchen in?

We wanted yellow or orange. SWMBO's friend has an orange living room and she really liked it.

Are you moved in now?

Not even close. We want to paint first. We took 2 car loads of boxes over yesterday after the closing and threw them in the garage. We're getting a U-haul for the big stuff. I don't think we'll actually move until 2 or 3 more weeks. Our apartment lease is up on 12/22 so we have plenty of time.
 
Lorena is right. Take a look at any open floor plan on the houses you see on home improvement channels. You rarely see a WHOLE room in one color.

SWMBO makes fun of me because I actually have pretty decent decorating sense - and have made almost all the key color decisions on our house.

Here is what I'd do (without seeing pictures).

Take one color that you like - a fairly neutral one and use it as the base color. You carry that color throught the house (but you can start with just a couple of rooms). Paint common walls that color.

Then, take bolder colors are use them to accent. You don't paint the entire room that color, just some of the walls. This allows you to use more intense colors, but they won't dominate.

The expanded color pallete allows you to use colors to do different things. For instance, you can use a dark paint on one wall to make a room look deeper.

Why don't you post some pics!
 
I've done that just-paint-one-accent-wall trick. It lets you get away with using a MUCH more intense color than you could use for an entire room. We used a very intense, almost cobalt blue in the dining room of our apartment, but it was just on one wall; the rest was neutral. It looked phenomenal.

You could use a warm nuetral color as your base, then use the wine on an accent wall. Given how you've described the red, I would think a very autumnal orange, something that's warm ane earthy, could also work well as a complement. The orange will be tough, I would almost buy a quart and paint a section of the wall before you commit to a color choice. Orange is probably the most difficult color to get right.
 
These are the only pics of the inside I have right now, not sure if this will help any. First one is the living room, the shared wall is the right wall in the photo.

IMG_0002.jpg


This is the kitchen (duh). I had my back to the shared wall when I took this photo. Like I said, I don't think this is going to help. Notice the wall on the right side, the stairs are directly to the right of this wall and the stairs face the back door and deck.

IMG_0001.jpg


I'll try to get some more pic's tonight.
 
That helps quite a bit...


Here is what I'd do:

Make that back wall DARK - the one with the fireplace. It will make it jump and become the focal point of the room. Pull a color from accent pillows on your couch or buy pillows that have that color in them. With that fireplace color, I tnink chocolate would look awesome, but it depends on furniture. On the other two walls you see and the back one - use your base color. I'd use a topue, but VERY light yellow would work too - almost like a parchment color.
IMG_0002.jpg


You've got so much white here in cabinets you could do ANYTHING you want as far as color goes. Since that wall to your back will be neutral, you can go nuts!!

IMG_0001.jpg
 
I agree with rdwj. The wall around the fireplace can be a deep, intense color. If you want orange, a real earthy orange, something very organic feeling, autumn leaves kind of color would be good. "Parchment" is a good thought too for the base color. I would put the red, which I am assuming is a pretty intense color, in the kitchen; with those cabinets, it'll look outstanding. I'd do both walls in the kitchen.

Looks like a newer house in pretty good shape. When's the housewarming? :D
 
you guys are a little too good at this stuff...... :D

Thanks for the input, I do like that orange. I guess what I'm thinking for colors are "earth tones" a lot like when bird said autumn leaves. I'm sure SWMBO will love that since she is a hippie from Vermont.
 
A Couple more tips -

  1. make sure you use a tinted primer if you're using dark colors. They make coverage MUCH easier.
  2. Use the blue painters masking tape for your baseboards, ceiling and cabinets
  3. When you have a point where one color meets another in a coner, overpaint the corner with the light color and use an edging tool to make a nice crisp edge with the dark color.
 
Here's another.

It's a lot easier to work on a heavy painter's tarp rather than the rolls of plastic that you can buy at the Depot. The plastic is slippery as hell.
 
Boy! That looks a lot like my place. Just put the sink where the stove is and the stove next to the fridge spot. I don't know what your kitchen has on the fourth wall, but mine has a shallow pantry. very useful.

I really wish I had replaced the carpet before I moved in. The paint was new, all beige, but new.
 
david_42 said:
Boy! That looks a lot like my place. Just put the sink where the stove is and the stove next to the fridge spot. I don't know what your kitchen has on the fourth wall, but mine has a shallow pantry. very useful.

I really wish I had replaced the carpet before I moved in. The paint was new, all beige, but new.

the doorway that you can see in the kitchen photo faces the pantry. The 4th wall is just windows. All of the carpet is new but like your paint, it's all beige!
 
the_bird said:
Here's another.

It's a lot easier to work on a heavy painter's tarp rather than the rolls of plastic that you can buy at the Depot. The plastic is slippery as hell.

we have a huge plastic tarp that has been wrapped around a queen size mattress 3 times so I hope that's big enough!
 
The only painting advice I can offer is to get a Paintstick, the handle is filled with paint and it makes painting so much quicker. Excellent for doing ceilings and higher walls.
 
here are some more pics:

view from eat-in kitchen out into the living room. the shared wall is on the right.

IMG_0013.jpg



view from kitchen cabinets out toward door to garage, dining room is to the left. Floyd is bottom right.

IMG_0015.jpg



view from fireplace looking towards kitchen. shared wall is on the left.

IMG_0017.jpg


view of an evil yet overheated-looking Floyd.

IMG_0014.jpg
 
Looks real nice, Todd!

I guess I'm more convinced that the shared wall wants to all be a neutral color, maybe the parchment that rdwj suggested. The tough part of doing two colors is where they connect; a straight line would look odd, there isn't really a natural break. I don't think you can have two different colors, it needs to be one color that will work with whatever you put on the fireplace wall and in the kitchen.

Looks like a nice house - how old is it?

And Floyd looks like a good dog; is he the Hurricane?
 
the_bird said:
Looks real nice, Todd!

I guess I'm more convinced that the shared wall wants to all be a neutral color, maybe the parchment that rdwj suggested. The tough part of doing two colors is where they connect; a straight line would look odd, there isn't really a natural break. I don't think you can have two different colors, it needs to be one color that will work with whatever you put on the fireplace wall and in the kitchen.

Looks like a nice house - how old is it?

And Floyd looks like a good dog; is he the Hurricane?

Yeah, a break would look weird. We're suppose to go buy paint on Saturday and we're still not sure what colors to go with.

The house was built in 1997.

Yes, that would be Hurricane Floyd. He isn't as much of a spaz as he was a couple years ago (he'll be 3 in January) but he can still cause a lot of trouble. Tonight was his first trip to the new house, he freaked when got inside and ran around. I ran upstairs and he went around the downstairs looking for me before he figured out he had to climb the stairs too. After that, he started whining for the rest of the night. He's a PITA. :D
 
I have nothing useful to add, but I'm getting a happy buzz on homebrew, and I thought I'd take it out on this thread.:drunk:

Apparently the male color palette has expanded! Most guys (myself included) can only recognize 9 colors: red, blue, yellow, green, orange, purple, white, black, brown. If you want to be a show-off, triple the number by adding "light" or "dark" to the front of each one. Add one more for "baby $hit."

Here's a list of "colors" mentioned in this thread that I haven't the faintest how to picture: wine, Washington Apple, cream, beige, neutral, cobalt, chocolate, topue, parchment, autumn leaves, earth tones. I'm pretty sure that list roughly translates into: we want to do some sort of wholistic experiment this fall by eating expensive food off of old paper.

Perhaps SWMBO is right...I'm an insensitive bastard.

Oh yeah, nice house, man!
 
Yuri, you're the only one who mentioned "toupe." I don't know what f_cking color "toupe" is. I really don't.

Do you have something you would like to share with us? :D
 
rdwj said:
I'd use a topue, but VERY light yellow would work too - almost like a parchment color.
One of the two of us misspelled. Maybe both.

EDIT: After asking SWMBO, here's what I found out: the intent was probably taupe, which is brown. Toupe apparently comes in several varieties, namely, blonde, brunette, and redhead, which are also all brown. Stupid spell checker.
 
Yuri_Rage said:
...Apparently the male color palette has expanded! Most guys (myself included) can only recognize 9 colors: red, blue, yellow, green, orange, purple, white, black, brown. If you want to be a show-off, triple the number by adding "light" or "dark" to the front of each one. Add one more for "baby $hit."...Here's a list of "colors" mentioned in this thread that I haven't the faintest how to picture: wine, Washington Apple, cream, beige, neutral, cobalt, chocolate, topue, parchment, autumn leaves, earth tones. I'm pretty sure that list roughly translates into: we want to do some sort of wholistic experiment this fall by eating expensive food off of old paper...

Actually, there are only 3 colors, the primaries: red, yellow and blue.

The secondary colors are a mixure of the one next to it on the color wheel; i.e., red and yellow become orange, yellow and blue become green, blue and red become purple.

Orange is the "complementary color" of blue, green to red, and purple to yellow. That's why we see these colors and they work/look good together.

All the other "colors" are just various mixtures of those 3 primary colors.

Add white (the absence of dark pigment) to any of those combinations and you have "tints".

Add black (the absence of light pigment) to any combination and you have "tones". These are called "colorful greys".

Both of these catagories are where your "fancy" names are used to describe your new "colors".

In the end, as in the beginning, there are only 3 colors.:D
 
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