Help picking interior paint

cals400ex

I am looking to paint a house I just purchased. I am looking for suggestions on colors. I do not plan on purchasing new appliances in the kitchen nor do I plan on immediately replacing the kitchen floor, due to finances. The house is currently empty and I will be purchasing new furniture after I get the house painted. Here are some pictures of the house. Any suggestions would be great.

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cals400ex

Currently, all of the walls are painted the same color, besides the one bedroom that has chocolate brown at the base. I don't mind going different colors, accent walls, etc. I have a tendency to like browns, sandy-tans, greys, etc. I am not a huge fan of yellow and green. I don't really have a scheme that I am going after. I am looking for something that isn't too bold with really bright colors but I don't want it to be one boring cream color, like it is now.

info2x

I think this should be in the interior decorating section... That being said you typically pick the furniture then the wall color right?

joecaption

And the flooring colors before deciding on paint colors.
Try going on a few major paint companys web sites. So have app where you can down load a picture of your room and change the colors on screen.
Pick up some design magizines.

Gymschu

Very nice home. To be honest, it looks fine. Nice neutral color on the walls. Personally, I would move in first, live in it for awhile and then make color decisions based on your carpet color, furniture and wall accents color(s). Also, you will get a better handle on the lighting of your new home. Is it dark in the bedroom? Is it too bright in the living room? Etc. Lighting has a lot to do with color selection. For example, you may like a dark brown color for a bedroom that receives little natural light and thus the color would make the room dark and depressing. Maybe you love a cream color for the living room but the sofa color has burgundy stripes.......well, you get the picture. Living there for 3 - 6 months will give you better ideas about what colors to paint the walls IMO.

beenthere

Moved to Interior decorating forum.

cals400ex

I will keep all of the carpet and floors as they sit now. I will keep the white shades on all of the windows and the only curtain on the window that separates the kitchen and living room. The living room is a little brighter than the bedroom because there are more windows in the living room. The couch that I am purchasing will be brown or tan. The walls are quite dirty and stained in many places, the pictures just don't show this. I appreciate the suggestions.

info2x

Forgot to mention, nice looking place. My home which I've just started to go through and begin painting was also one color. I can't really tell from your pics, but if the ceilings are the same color as the walls like mine were, just getting those painted as well as trim will go a long way at making the place look a lot better. That's just my $.02 though.

cals400ex

The ceilings and the trim and doors are all white. The walls are more of an off white / cream color.

toastandjam

Looks ok as it is now.

sdsester

I would take some time and do a floorplan of your place. It will come in handy for so many things. For software I use a free, open source program called Sweet Home 3D.

A floorplan will give you a starting point in figuring out how much material you need when painting and redoing flooring. A graphic representation also lets you think about color flow in different ways.

Usually when working with clients on color I start by inventorying those color that are not going to change like flooring, fireplaces, appliances, furniture that stays and is not subject to rehupolstering. Then I work around client tastes and color preferences.

The virtual painting programs Joe mentioned are great and fun to play with. I use Benjamin Moore's best. Both the online and download version are free but if you download you have to load Adobe AIR too but it is free also. I believe it only runs on Windows machines though.

Anyhow, with these programs you can either pick a photo of a room that is very similar to yours and is already masked off; or you can upload you own photo, spend a little time masking off different paint areas (i.e. ceilings, walls, trim). Then paint away.

Be sure and set your monitor to 6500K, the standard temperature for viewing color. And get some large swatches of the colors you think you like from the simulation. Don't just take what you see on screen and buy gallons.

As mentioned, color of light and the way light bulbs render a color spectrum is very important and can cause a major shift in how a color looks. A trend is toward daylight bulbs for artificial light with color temperatures 5,000K or above and color rendering indexes of 95-100.

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