The house painters will be working on the new place starting Friday, so I've applied some test patches on the various accent walls to verify that the colors I've selected actually work and look as I expected them to. Also, since Mom had some alternative ideas to try out, I put some comparative colors up to try to decide.
First up, the main living/dining area will have a medium brown accent wall (the largest wall in the house, two rooms long by two stories high). Here's a corner of the dining room that shows off the color combo (main interior color is on the right, accent color on the left):
Here's the same corner, taken under different lighting conditions at night:
I'm pretty happy with those colors, so that room is pretty well nailed down.
Next up is the family room, in which I originally intended to use the regular interior color with a dark brown accent wall (against which the TV will go). However, Mom suggested the possibility of using the accent color from the living/dining area as the base color in the family room, to offset that room from the kitchen/nook area. So, here's a picture with both base color options (normal base color at the bottom left, Mom's option top left, right wall is the dark brown accent):
Here's a closeup shot of that corner, to give a better idea of the color differences. However, this picture was taken with flash so the colors are brighter than normal:
In fact, the main concern I have about this room is the relatively dim lighting. This picture was taken at night, with every possible surrounding light on, from a distance while using flash. My concern with using the darker base color is that the room is already pretty dark as it is, and the contrast of the accent wall is diminished:
Also, because of the layout of the place if I use the darker color for a base in that room, I'd need to extend that color along the hallway between family room and foyer, which I'm not keen to do. And, since I'm having the ceilings painted the same color as the walls, if there's a different base color in the family room there would need to be a border on the ceiling as well. So, I'm going to stick with the original plan and use the regular lighter base color here.
Rounding out the downstairs, I've been debating whether to use dark green or dark red in the office. So, here are the two options in the room:
And again at night, with benefit of flash (which brings much more of the green out):
That was one thing that turned out not quite as expected -- the dark green that I chose is really dark. It's nice, and goes well with the base color, but it certainly darkens the room. The red is a really beautiful, rich burgundy/maroon color. Looking at the two colors together, while I do like the green, the red just says "Office" (or "Den") more clearly to me. So, that's the direction I'm going to go in that room.
Upstairs, I've been set on a navy blue for the master bedroom all along. Unfortunately, the daytime shots that I took were too blurry to use, but this picture taken at night with flash shows the color pretty well (not to mention the parts of the wall that I didn't coat quite as thoroughly as I could have!):
The last decision to be made is in the guest bedroom upstairs. I've been debating whether to use the red, green, or purple (plum) colors that I'd picked out. After reviewing all of the colors again, I dropped the plum as being far too dark. And, having already used the red for the office, that would naturally leave the green for the guest room. But, as I said above, green is pretty dark too. And Mom thought that I should re-use the accent color from the living/dining room area for the guest room as well, as that would be more neutral. So, here's the corner of the guest room with both the green and medium brown as accents. I still haven't decided which way to go on this one:
This room is also a little dark at night (though the overhead light works much better in this smaller space than in the family room), but here's an evening picture with benefit of flash:
Decisions, decisions. Fortunately I've still got a few days to make up my mind before the painters have to order the paint. If you've got feedback, let me know right away so that I can give it some consideration!
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