coral bedroom color schemes

with paint there are so manybeautiful colors to choose from. so how do you know which coloris right for you and your home? let's sit in with becky ralick spak, senior designer withsherwin-williams and homeowner meredith brooksto learn a few tips. a great place to beginwhen you're looking at color is with your existing furnishings, things such asyour carpeting, flooring... areas that have alreadya large amount of color.

so if you can give me some ideas of where we're going to beginand what you're keeping, that will be helpful in establishingsome colors that we can grow from. sure, with the rooms that we're going to belooking at in particular, the living room,the dining room and the office, i do have some things in there thatwe're going to need to work off of. good. in the dining room, in the livingroom i have existing drapery

that i would like to try to keep. so i'd like to workaround that with the wall color. we also have existing carpeting that we're not goingto be replacing. it's a pretty neutral colorbut i want to keep that in mind. and then the other thingi thought might be important is all of those roomscome off of the foyer in the kitchen and this is the hardwood floor. that's in both of those rooms

so i thought you might wantto know about that as well. that's perfect,you've really done your homework. one thing that i'm strugglingwith is finding my true style. do you have any tipsthat could help me? a great place to startwould be with magazines. you start to see a specific style,you start to see specific colors and when you findsomething you like, tear it out and start your ownindividual folder. you start to see a patternand it's very helpful then

when you look at both furnishingsand with paint selection in color. another idea would beto try your closet. people don't think of thatbut it's a perfect place to begin. you have colors that you like,you have items that are, very comfortable for you and you shouldtake into consideration those items when you're selecting color. because they willtranslate very well into your home and make you feel very comfortable.

another place,if you're still at odds would bethe idea cards in the stores. they show specific styleswith colors already painted. it gives you an idea of how things are going to lookin that particular home or style and then yousort of get a better idea of how that will translateto your home. so all those ideas will helpin the color selection process. what i've doneis picked these warm tones

that you currentlyhave in your home so that we can take a lookand i can give you some ideas on how to use color,especially in an open floor plan. one idea might be to usea monochromatic color scheme using one entire strip, either usingtwo, three, four colors, maybe evenall the colors on this strip. but what that doesis create sophistication. it's subtle and it creates harmony

so there's balancegoing from room to room. i really like that idea. in fact, it seems like a nice, easyway to be safe with your colors. the one thing i do worry about is,i don't want it to be boring. does monochromatictend to get boring? oh certainly not,monochromatic gives you a, sort of neutral backdropor a palette to work from. what i mean by that isyou can add accent colors, to accent wallsand your furnishings.

you can bring seasonal colors in. so contrast in colorssuch as greens and oranges. you mentioned that you liked red, sowe can add some interest with that. even if you havean architectural feature such as a niche, we can createa contrasting color in that area and really call attentionand focus to that particular area. one thing that i find frustratingis i find a color on the strip in the storethat i really love, select it, get the paint, bring ithome, paint out the entire room

and find that it looks nothinglike the color on the strip. do you have any tips for me? you're not alone,we hear that quite frequently. and yes,i do have some ideas for you. certainly take the strip homeand look at it under your lighting. it's so critical. lighting and color gohand-in-hand together. you need to look at howthat color is going to look. with the natural sunlight coming in,natural lighting coming in,

through your windows,as well as the artificial lighting. the lighting of your lamps,the overhead ceiling lights, it's all going to change. not to mention your furnishings, they’re going to reflectdifferent colors, as well, onto that color of paint. so take it home with you. lighting is something i neverthought about before, affecting the color.

another thing you can dois try the color to go samples. they are samples of paint that you could get tendedto any color that you choose. you bring them home,you apply them to your wall and you havea great experience of color that you can then lookand see what it's going to look like within your space,because you have all the elements. you have your furnishings,you have your natural lighting, you have your artificial lighting.

and then, if you don't feellike painting a wall, you can always painta piece of poster board and with that you can take it aroundto different walls in your room and you can see what that coloris going to look like. whether it's next to the window,where the sunlight is coming in, whether it's next to your book caseswhere it's a little dark and you might have a shadow. well, that sounds like a much saferplan than painting out the entire room.

another thingthat i need advice on is how to select colorfor an open floor plan, where do i startand stop with color? an open floor plan isn'tas difficult as it may seem. what you need to dois just look for natural elements. architectural elements,such as a wall jutting out, maybe it's an arch or a doorway, and then use thoseas a natural break for color. what if there is no natural break?

if there's no naturalbreak for color? you always remember to go backto your monochromatic system or floor plan and what you do is justcarry color on a same strip. you could go from lighterto darker, from room to room. and it flows naturally. okay. and finally, when you thinkabout any painting project, even if you're just lookingat one specific room,

you really need to lookat the whole house in its entirety, because eventually,it has a domino effect and you need toconsider all those colors, and how they will flowfrom room to room. so even if you're just workingon one room for this phase, think about phases to come and how you will incorporatecolors into those rooms as well. and that way you have flow andcontinuity throughout your entire home.

i can't believe what a difference these colors havemade in this house. oh i'm so happy that we'vebeen able to help you out. certainly, if you think about it we started with your existingcolor blonde in the foyer, and we workeda monochromatic scheme but we added some accent colors too. we went into your office withthe red color family "stolen kiss". and then adding that blonde,

carrying it from the foyerinto the office. it really looks wonderful. right, that littlearchitectural feature you had, that little knock out,that bump out in the study, we did that with blonde,it was fabulous. it really calls sortof attention to the bookcase, that's located there as well. definitely, before itwent unnoticed. and in the living roomwe carried out

the monochromatic scheme, with the color ivory, which isone shade lighter than blonde, which is in your foyer. so we're able to make itlook very natural and flow very nice fromyour foyer into your living room. and it's warm. -it is warm.-it’s very neutral but it's warm. what do you thinkof the dining room? becky, i love, lovethe dining room.

the color madesuch a difference in here. i was a little worried thatit was going to be dark. i was worried about going the sameabove and below the chair rail. the minute they started puttingthe color on the walls, i just, i can't tell you how muchi love this room, it's so warm. wonderful,i know you expressed concern early on about the monochromaticscheme being very dull and boring. you were a littleconcerned about that. so what i did was takethis punch of color,

and really use itto inspire conversation and make your guestsfeel really warm in this room. by carrying that color aboveand below the chair rail, we really just keep it very sortof consistent and just comfortable. we used the roycroft adobein this dining room, from the historicalpreservation palette. because it very muchsuits your style and your furnishingsthat you have in the home already. then in order to sort of createa flow off the foyer,

i also suggested we usethis color in your powder room, which i think looks fantasticin that small space. it really warms it up. and we haven't eventalked about the tray ceiling and how greatthat looks in this room. i'm glad you're pleased, so manypeople forget about the ceiling especially a tray ceiling that hasthese architectural details to it that you can embellish. and what we did was carry throughfrom your foyer in your living room

the colors blonde and ivoryand apply those. and then just do a soft color washof the illusions gold metallic. just to give a little subtle hintof glimmer and some visual image. and some interest for your guests. your tip on utilizing allthese colors and accessories from room to room, it just really helpedpull this house together. it's always important,the sort of the finishing touch, really the icing on the cake thatreally pulls everything together.

not only thatbut it identifies your personality. and it should alwaysrepresent your personality and your likes and interests, not mine or someone else's, because it's a reflectionof your home and the occupants in this home. so it's very important. another interesting elementthat we did was that nicheat the top of the stairs,

sort of just washed away. and what we did was pull thatred color family “stolen kiss” from your officeand highlight that area. then just have the painterdo a light color washing over it, so it really becomes a shadow box if you will, a reallyhighlight to your guests as they enter your home and look up. becky, i can't thank you enoughfor the help that you've given me. with the tips that i learnedthrough the process

i feel that i can really selectcolor with confidence. and you know what,i had so much fun doing it. i'm pleased thatyou're happy with the results and that you had fundoing it as well. keep these simple color tipsin mind and color selection is easy. whether you're choosing colorfor a single room or a whole house, keep these simple tips in mind. decide what featuresare going to stay and make color choicesthat work with them.

use magazines, friends' homes,even your favorite clothes to help identify stylesand colors that suit you. bring color home. paint sample areas or poster boards to see how lightaffects color in your rooms. pull it all together withaccessories that carry your palettefrom one room to another. selecting color isn't a science, it's an expression of who you areand the life you live.

ask sherwin-williams.

Tweet

Subscribe to receive free email updates: