Need decor advice

[ponygirlmom]

I am suddenly faced with the ability to repaint my home office. We have to tear into a wall to repair some plumbing. That wall will have to be repainted, so we decided to repair and paint all the walls.

Right now the walls are pink (not my color choice!) with white built-in bookshelves and French doors. The carpet is a cranberry color. The carpet is the same as our living room, which adjoins, so the carpet stays. As you can imagine, we recarpeted years ago but did not repaint my office.

Since my walls are full of colorful things, as well as more bookshelves, I thought I would paint the walls the same white as my living room, and use color for the built-in bookshelves and French doors.

My daughter is pushing for yellow on the wood, and I've found one that actually looks pretty cool next to the carpet. My husband isn't so much a fan. I need suggestions!

A friend on another forum asked my furniture color; it's white.

 

[CThrock]

I'm in the middle of painting my spare room too, it's hard to pick good colors to match. I think colors of the room give the room creator so I love doing it.
My advice for your colors would be a gold yellow for the selves and an off white for the walls, with the cranberry carpet should look nice. But how white is your furniture? The off white might clash with it if they are really white. You can also get some throw pillows to match your carpet or the gold yellow it would bring out the colors more. Would be nicer if down the road you could get brown furniture it would make it look cozey. Let me know what you decide trying to picture all of this is hard when you can't see the room and colors of everything but I hope this helped some.

 

[swim mom]

choosing colors is awful!!! we just recently repainted our living room and we must have tried 30 different colors before we decided! Now we are procrastinating on painting our other rooms because we are tired of trying to decide!!! Good Luck!

 

[Freddie]

I too have a cranberry type color rug - almost a dark rust color.
Personally I would leave your white built-in bookshelves alone and paint your office walls a soft/light grey color and/or paint one wall a darker grey.

It's so hard to describe colors in person little own the internet, but imagine having a can of black paint and a can of white paint and your mixing the white with the black until you find that "grey" that appeals to you.

I'm assuming your baseboards and french doors are white?

 

[Freddie]

Try looking at these to get the idea of greys I was talking about.

 

[gadgetman]

Guys,

This hyar is one of them minefield quesshuns. Eff'n yer foolish inough t'make a colo' suggesshun an' it fails then it is YOUR FAULT. Eff'n yer smart an' say "Whutevah yo' decide" an' it turns out she don't like it, it's STILL YOUR FAULT!

It's a no win situashun. Yo' haf already lost eifer way so bess answer is a shrug of th' sh'ders.

Bubba

 

[ponygirlmom]

In answer to a few questions, my furniture is definitely white (not off-white in any way; it's very modern scandinavian furniture) and my French doors can be any color I want; they are getting painted, too.

I normally don't have any trouble picking colors because I have always been able to pick the colors for the entire room. But now I am working around that carpet. I'd like my office to be more fun than the living room (which it adjoins) but I can't use all the bright colors I might like because they would look awful with that cranberry carpet.

 

[Bina]

I would start with tearing out the carpet.....Red carpet, white furniture....to restrictive.
Choose a nice flooring and then if you like, have an area rug that would be easier to deal with.

 

[ponygirlmom]

I guess I should also say that I cannot change the floor! We weren't even supposed to be living in this house anymore, but our new house is mired in litigation due to a very defective contractor. We would never have painted my office if we didn't have to tear up the wall to get to the plumbing.

 

[Bina]

Okay, then. Try a cream colour, not quite butter.

 

[tobagotwo]

If you want the perfect color for a wall or large area:

1. Pick the exact color you want on a test or color card.

2) When you buy the paint, get it two shades lighter.

It doesn't look right when you buy it, or even when you put it on, but when it dries, it's somehow just right.

Paint is always perceived as being darker when expanded onto a wall surface than on a tiny swatch card. Our experience is two shades.

Best wishes,

 

[catwoman]

I'm trying to bring myself to repaint several rooms in my home. But I am not good at decorating!!!!!!!!!! My sister and two nieces, on the other hand, are Martha Stewart clones.

Reading these posts makes me feel better... there are others who have difficulty in choosing colors. Woo-hoo!!!

Maybe there's hope I can get down to choosing paint colors and get it done -- by the time we have our house paid for in 23 months.......

 

[Dennis S]

I too have a cranberry type color rug - almost a dark rust color.
Personally I would leave your white built-in bookshelves alone and paint your office walls a soft/light grey color and/or paint one wall a darker grey.

I think Freddie has hit the nail on the head. And I would stress a relatively soft/light gray.

 

[netmiff]

You are lucky, only having one room to do, what fun !! I always seem to do it a houseful at a time, this is my second in 5 years! Try this site, they have software, too, that you can "paint" your own house with any colour you want. On the home page, they have a dark reddish-rust-brick colour paired with a dark khaki-sage green, and it looks good !

http://www.colorcharts.org/ccorg/default.aspx

I have just done my downstairs in the most heavenly grey. it is an ICI paint called "Veil", it has no undertone to it at all, and when I announced my choice on a decorating forum that I frequent, I got a lot of response from others who had found it the "perfect" grey. My white shelves look good with it.

http://www.colorcharts.org/ccorg/resources/colors.aspx?companyid=124562&lineid=757&cbn=3M1J-QRQ5-K1B5

You should probably pick one about as dark as your carpet, it will help it fade into the background. You can, of course, go up or down the card, but as that doesn't always work, you can ask to have a can made up either at half strength or double. This is different from just adding white, as the pigments stay in their correct proportions. One room in my last place had three strengths of the same colour (Stowe White, and that was a favourite of a HGTV designer acquaintanve of mine)- 1/2 on the ceiling, as was on the trim and 4 times on the walls. Loved the4 times so much, I did my hall here in it.

I can post photos in my album if you would like

 

[Freddie]

Don't know about anyone else Jeanette, but I would like to see some pictures

 

[netmiff]

Don't know about anyone else Jeanette, but I would like to see some pictures

do you have high-speed? or am I thinking of someone else . . . . hee hee

as to the pics, will do!

 

[Freddie]

do you have high-speed? or am I thinking of someone else . . . . hee hee

as to the pics, will do!

Darn right I'm fast ......I mean high speed.....honestly people. I mean really, what did you think I meant.....on second thought don't answer that. Bina will make this site go down again.

Thanks Jeanette, I'll be looking foreword to your pics.

 

[netmiff]

Freddie (and anyone else) try this link

http://s944.photobucket.com/albums/ad289/netmiff/

if it doesn'twork, let me know!

 

[Freddie]

Yep, thats the color I was thinking of.
Nice little shop you got there. What do you do in this little shop of yours?

 

[netmiff]

oh, not a lot - check out my vr.com buddies, my e-mail, other forum buddies, look up recipes for DH to make for supper nd . . but if you were asking what am I supposed to be doing, I'll PM you on that, unless Ross-baby gives me the OK to post here . .