Room decoration / painting assistance (pics)

[sonichart]

Hey gang, I'm not quite sure this was the first forum I thought to post a question about room decor. Probably because this is a large community of creative people. So i'll get right to it. I'm color blind :lol: and I want to make some changes to a particular area of my home. If you look at the picture, the back wall (behind the TV) is towering lofty type wall.. I'm tired of it being white. So I've decided to paint it a color. I'm leaning to green, but not completely set on it yet (because I'm also a Bears fan, and well,.. can't have TOO much green in the house). I plan on doing my office entirely green (except for a white ceiling) so any suggestions on wall color would be cool.

I'm TIRED of blue. So that's a *no* to blue. My main concern is the in-wall book shelf. If you notice where its a dark-blue now, well, I want to paint that white and have the inside shelves and back wall to be a color that compliments the large wall.

Also, I'm getting rid of that TV so i'm thinking about buying a large tapestry to hang in the middle there.

Any ideas would be awesome and greatly appreciated.

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1120/1031113152_f31c5e5e5c.jpg

[BuonRotto]

My short, annoying and obnoxious answer is that it depends on the green. :p My advice would be to pic the wall decor, the tapestry or whatever, and find a green based on the color in that. Either go with warm/ruddy colors and find a complementary green, or find a bit of green in the thing and match it. It's hard to pick a green out of thin air though (had to avoid saying "out of the blue" just then). Do you like a cooler green? A green that has some yellow? A muted gray-ish or brownish green? Have any favorite paint manufacturers?

Try picking up some paint swatches and do a little process of elimination. Find the shades of green you definitely don't want, and hold onto the few you do. Take them shopping when you get the artwork and see if they complement or match. Matches don't have to be exact. Just be aware that the color in the swatch will be more exaggerated in a large area. A bright green will be brighter, a yellow green will be more yellow, a muted green can look gray.

Once you have a few (3 or so) colors picked, get a small amount to test with. You'll see how the color is coming out before doing the whole wall. You'll end up sanding and priming over the test patches anyway

...right?

[curiousuburb]

Just by opening Variations on the selected wall in PhotoShop... no change to bookshelves or other objects...

very slight hue shift... not strong colours by any means...

http://www.davidlegatt.com/images/albums/userpics/10002/Room-PS_Variations.jpg

and in case you want it louder... one with the midtones knobs cranked to 11... (almost)

http://www.davidlegatt.com/images/albums/userpics/10002/Room-PS_Variations2.jpg

[AWR]

That's a neat little trick curiousuburb. :)

[Robo]

I'm painting my room blue, which I think will go nicely with my light green stuff.

I was going to do lilac, but my friends said purple and green was very Barney, and all of a sudden I'm seeing blue and green stuff everywhere, so it should be easy to find stuff to match it all (rugs, curtains, etc.).

[BuonRotto]

Of course you're going to find blue and green all over. You figure that covers a large swath of the visible spectrum. ;)

Note that commercial paint manufacturers usually make these shortcut color sets, where if you pick color A, they recommend using color B as a backdrop and color C as an accent.

[sonichart]

Thanks for all the replies and yes, burb that was a neat trick. I think I'm definately going to go SOME shade of green--while painting the outter part of the shelves white and the inner part of the shelves a darker shade of the main wall (i've read that this reduces the appearance of clutter)

This is the tapestry that I found for a reasonable price.. free shipping, free rod and 60 day money back. Which will essentially replace my TV (lol!) but I think it fits well with the asian seaboard theme already present in the room.

http://us.st11.yimg.com/us.st.yimg.com/I/simplytapestries_1958_1776710

[BuonRotto]

Plenty o' green in that pic. :) Go out and get some paint swatches!

[curiousuburb]

Based more or less on one of the lighter greens in the Tapestry, this variations set

http://www.davidlegatt.com/images/albums/userpics/10002/Tapestry_Greens.jpg

;)

[sonichart]

Curiousburb, thats brilliant man... wow... what can you do with this one? Costs a little more but I think I like it better... p.s. this one is a tall tapestry.. 80" h x 56" wide..

http://us.st11.yimg.com/us.st.yimg.com/I/simplytapestries_1962_5251639

[curiousuburb]

80 inch is almost 7 feet long. That's a lot of thread, dude.

Not sure if I've got the proportions right for the room (don't know dimensions or size of teevee), and on reflection the width is not to scale, but...

Greens and new tapestry
http://www.davidlegatt.com/images/albums/userpics/10002/NewTapestryGreen.jpg

but I think if you're set on that tapestry, after playing around with some colours, I'd consider a stone or tan or brown-egg wall and its set of variations
http://www.davidlegatt.com/images/albums/userpics/10002/NewTapestryTan.jpg

[sonichart]

Just wanted to post and let everyone following the thread that I will be posting an update soon. I've got the large wall and bookcase painted. I really just need to hang the tapestry (in hand) and pick up a new coffee table as well as a sofa from the resale shop. The room looks SHARP and its only going to get better.

Thanks again for all the advice and help through this :)