The Glade 4.0

I have several walls that need to be painted. Some of the colors are ugly, some just need to be repainted, and some just had the old icky wallpaper torn off.
Pretty much the entire house except for the kitchen.
Unfortunately, I do not have the female gene that would make picking out paint colors a pleasure for me....I feel as out of place as a guy being asked to shop for a pair of high heels.
Suggestions?

The dining room:

The living room:

The daughter's room:

The son's room:

The parent's room:



The hallway:

The bathroom:

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

Its so... yellow.

I'm partial to greens and browns myself. Neutral colors that blend well with each others. Warm, earthy tones etc.

As for bedrooms:

Yes, I'm a Seahawks Fan. The top of the wall is the gray, the bottom is the blue, and there's a 2" green stripe around the middle. (Ignore the screen on that wall)


Home Depot has a team colors collection that can do NBA, NHL, NASCAR, and NFL. In addition to NCAA stuff too I think. That could be good for the boy if he likes sport or something. Or hell, even for the girl or Fox

I'll take a pic of my bathroom when I get home. I think that turned out quite well.

You have green furniture in the living room. I'd go with a cool toned green... Its hard to show on screen, but go light on the walls, and a darker border around that threshold. Basically reverse what you have.

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Holy shitsnacks!

Yes. Yellow and exorcist-pea-soup green. Blech!
Help help!!

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

Are you sure all those rooms aren't exactly the same color?

I have no suggestions really though. I'm bad with colors, and doubly bad trying to pick them through a picture on my monitor.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

Prime black, undercoat Mordian Blue, then basecoat Ultramarines Blue. Shining Gold trim, wash Badab Black all over. Paint over flat areas with Ultramarines Blue again, leaving the wash in the crevices, then highlight with a 1:1 Ultramarines Blue/Ice Blue mix, just the hard edges.

I'll let Khross speak to the optimum Dark Angels scheme, lest I get it wrong and incur his ultimate eternal wrath.

Wait, we're not talking Space Marines?

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Do you or Fox have an iPhone? If so, look up the Sherwin Williams app (might be available for Droid, I dunno). Should help. You rake a photo with your phone and it picks out complementary colors based on the items in the image.

I don't have the gene either, but my wife seems to have...

The dining room


The hall


The kitchen


I'm not very fond of the color of the kitchen, but some folks feel it's nice. Mostly I just kept my mouth shut after objecting once.

I would personally have gone with much lighter colors, but darker ones seem to be popular these days.

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In time, this too shall pass.

I like your dining room, Taskiss. I like lighter colors, but I still like them to be colorful. I'm not much for dark colors or ones that are too bright (red and burgandy and purple are a no-go for me).
I like the brown color in your hallway too.

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

http://kuler.adobe.com

Great for finding color schemes. Just throw in a search for whatever feel you want, and see what comes up.

Nitefox does. I'll see if he can do that when he gets home. I tried the paint thingy they have on their website...its ok, you just have to pretty much paint the entire room with a small tool before you can try different colors and I suck at tracing, hahaha!

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

Dark colors do look great, but keep the trim white it helps to make it not so oppressive.

The greens are popular, sage ect. I think that would look great in your LR Kate. I like watching HGTV when I can, lots of up to date ideas there. Also, their website has great ideas!

Edit: what was I thinking, just looked at ur pic again, I think a darker brown would be better in the living room, don't think u want green sofa and walls too


Taskiss, love the burgundy/red in the kitchen! That looks great with the cupboards!

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Dream as if you'll live forever...
...Live as if you'll die tomorrow

Vivere Senza Rimpianti

I think the thing that saves the red in Taskiss' kitchen is the white countertop in addition to the trim. If it had been a dark counter, that'd be way too much, way too bright, with nothing to lighten the tone enough (the cabinets themselves are too neutral).

That said, LK -- I'm having a hard time making suggestions on some of the rooms.

The kitchen dining room confounds me a bit. I don't think there's enough lightness to go with a darker or brighter color without it getting oppressive (for an eating/socialization area), but the white furniture makes me hesitant to suggest something light for lack of contrast. Perhaps something pastel-ish?

I think picking up on the couch's green tones in the living room is probably a good idea. Either a cool brown or a mid-tone green on the neutral side.

The kids' rooms, if you're going to paint them, should have a lot of input from the kids, IMO, unless you're painting with selling soon in mind.

Your room I don't really have much to go on.

The bathroom, I'd try to pick up on the beige tones of the shower tile, toilet, and maybe let the edging on the mirror influence the shade some, too. Something kind of sandy, probably, browner and a tad more orange than the soft yellow that's in there.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

I painted the dining room a deep red, these pictures dont do the color justice but you can get an idea:







The living room is a pear color, light green, I dont think I have any shots of that handy though. I like it.

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“Strong people are harder to kill than weak people, and more useful in general”. - Mark Rippetoe

Pull down the panelling if at all possible.

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Not at all possible without redoing the entire house....the home was bought for an extremely low price by some guy who flipped it and then sold it for 30,000 over what he paid for it....when I took down the wall in the bathroom that was covering the window, there was a header that had to be entirely replaced because of 40 year old termite damage.
I'm terribly afraid to uncover anything in this house.

Dash, I'm not a fan of red walls, but I gotta admit it looks really good with the dark brown trim. Really nice.

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

If there are termites eating the house you should definitely pull down the panels and see what's back there before it collapses around you...

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Dash, that looks great!

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Dream as if you'll live forever...
...Live as if you'll die tomorrow

Vivere Senza Rimpianti

Termites, past tense. The house has been inspected at some point in the recent past and passed. Damage, however, has been cleverly hidden with layers of paint, plaster, paneling, carpet, etc.
The more I try to "fix" the more I realize I just need to stop or we'll wind up having to rebuild the entire house and its not worth that much at all.

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

Man, see, this is why I live in a **** castle. I don't like the Doom Green Tapestries with my face on them? I just replace them with newer Doom Green Tapestries with my face on them. Besides, not even I'm foolish enough to pain hand set stone walls ... well, at least they look like hand set stone.

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Paneling in a child's room = fun stripes. Let them pick the colors.

In your room, something restful and cool. Ice blue will look clean and bright.

Something in me wants that living room to be a vivid tropical turquoise

My painting consultant would have a field day with that house. She's here in Sacramento though. The important thing is picking colors you are comfortable with.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

I'd redo the walls first.

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That's not always an option.

Color selection is not something easily done based up on photographs like this, and since it highly subjective, take everything posted here with a grain of salt.

For starters, unless you goal is to also redecorate the other components in the room, look at what you already have in the space and extract color range from there.

I notice you don't have a lot of art work, from a sense of focal point anyway, in the main living spaces, or your bedroom.

About the most significant piece that I see is the couch in the living room, which in the green colors suggests a certain palette for the room, which fortunately, compliments nicely what is actually the major influence in those spaces, the gold colors of the wood floors. Turquoise blue against those brown/gold floors and the green couch probably won't look very good, for example.

Whats more, you will want to consider how spaces move from one to the next. For example, that doorway from the living space is of sufficient size that whatever color palette you use in the living room needs to be a consideration in the dining. Same with the hallway. The bedrooms and bathroom however, because of the isolated nature of the doors, can deviate from the palette and establish a sense of identity for your children/yourself (my space). I like the suggestion of ice blue/very pale blue for your bedroom, but that might mean making some other changes to the comforter.

There are also some other suggestions I would make that aren't necessarily related to color. Such as Khross suggested, your wall surfaces look like they need to be floated to correct for irregularities. This is important because I would suggest using satin/eggshell finish on the wall fields with semi-gloss or gloss on the trim. The satin finish will give enough reflectivity of light to give the walls a depth and warm glow that flat paints just can't create. However, as you move up in reflectivity of the paint (from flat to gloss), the more details or blemishes in the wall surface will be visible.

I would also reconsider the length of your curtain rods in the living room, and the shades. The long extensions on those curtain rods visually minimizes the amount of walls space, and extends the view plane, making the room look smaller, and the ceiling lower. Bringing the ends of the rods closer to the window trim will help balance the wall to window space. You might also look at leaving the shades in place (but making them all the same), but also installing vertical, floor length curtains that cover the trim at the window jambs. This will make the room seem to have more volume while further decreasing the dominance of those windows in the wall.

I'd also probably remove that ceiling fan and install can lights in the coffered ceiling tiles, or change the color of the fan to one that diminishes its presence in the room and visually lowers the ceiling height.

Thanks Ladas.
Re-doing the walls is not an option. We simply don't have the money, and I am 99% positive that even if we did, we would uncover more problems and wind up rebuilding the house.
The curtains that are up are just some cheap ones to try and block some of the heat out...they are not permanent, they don't even fit.
I really like the ceiling fan...I'll have to think about that one.
The blue for my room is a good suggestion and one that I've been thinking about already but not ice blue, more like sky blue.
The lack of artwork (or any decorating for that matter) is due to the house being in a permanent state of limbo...we were only supposed to live here for 3 weeks, hahha! Its been almost a year for me and 3 years for nitefox.

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth