Dark colours vs. light colours

[MoFo]

Queer Eye says that red and muted colours actually open up a room.

While popular notion is the opposite, whereas white supposedly opens up a room.

What do you think?? FROM EXPERIENCE PLEASE.

I tend to trust Thom since he has a really successful interior design company and he always does such a great job.

 

[quantumize]

i find that white opens up a room a lot, as do most lighter colours. i know a friend who just finnished setting up a small restaurant in mainly white and it loks so much bigger than when it was all in brown


but what do i know about colours really?

 

[Ditto Much]

Originally posted by MoFo
Queer Eye says that red and muted colours actually open up a room.

While popular notion is the opposite, whereas white supposedly opens up a room.

What do you think?? FROM EXPERIENCE PLEASE.

I tend to trust Thom since he has a really successful interior design company and he always does such a great job.

Dark colours only open up a room when you have a light coloured ceiling and large windows. Otherwise it always makes a room smaller. Egg shell light colours (pastels) open up rooms but require that all items in the room are of a darker hue.

If you have for instance an all white sofa, no amount of white wall is going to make the room look bigger. Through a dark colour throw on it and you will grow the room.

 

[Dr Funk MD]

White adds more light to a room because it reflects the widest spectrum of light perceptible to the human eye but despite popular opinion it does not change the physical dimension of a room. A hammer does though.

 

[graham]

yeah I think muted-tones accented with colour (rugs, pillows) etc do exactly that. Plus it's makes for a better presentation of wall art

in my experience anyway

 

[MoFo]

Re: Re: Dark colours vs. light colours

Originally posted by Ditto Much
Dark colours only open up a room when you have a light coloured ceiling and large windows. Otherwise it always makes a room smaller. Egg shell light colours (pastels) open up rooms but require that all items in the room are of a darker hue.

If you have for instance an all white sofa, no amount of white wall is going to make the room look bigger. Through a dark colour throw on it and you will grow the room.

That makes a lot of sense.

So let's say I have a black leather sofa, dark hardwood floors and I wanted my walls to be a darkish red. What kind of colours would I want my cushions, rugs and stuff to be?

I was thinking bright whites and silver?

 

[MoFo]

Originally posted by Dr Funk MD
White adds more light to a room because it reflects the widest spectrum of light perceptible to the human eye but despite popular opinion it does not change the physical dimension of a room. A hammer does though.

That's what I was thinking. I mean, how extra spacious can a room appear to be when it's not going to actually change physically.

 

[Humanjava]

Originally posted by MoFo
Queer Eye says that red and muted colours actually open up a room.

While popular notion is the opposite, whereas white supposedly opens up a room.

What do you think?? FROM EXPERIENCE PLEASE.

I tend to trust Thom since he has a really successful interior design company and he always does such a great job.

I had my apartment all white when I moved in and then I went to some darker tones and it feels much larger. However the correct light tones (not White!!) will give a feeling of more openess..

Also what you do for the ceiling makes a big differnce. White ceilings is one of the biggest mistakes.

 

[MoFo]

See, I like the white ceiling thing.
Why is that a mistake? If I were to paint it red, I'd want to paint the ceiling too?

 

[graham]

how big is the room ?

 

[MoFo]

Well, one of them is about 50 feet by 50 feet, I would say.
And I wanted my new bedroom to be some other colour like a muted green/grey or something. The bedroom is about 40 feet by 50 feet.

 

[Ditto Much]

Re: Re: Re: Dark colours vs. light colours

Originally posted by MoFo
That makes a lot of sense.

So let's say I have a black leather sofa, dark hardwood floors and I wanted my walls to be a darkish red. What kind of colours would I want my cushions, rugs and stuff to be?

I was thinking bright whites and silver?

Its sounds to dark for it uless you balance with curtains as well and I think it will look cheap. Not knowing what the light is like I'm seeing bordello from the discription so I would try to theme in that way.

go into your closet and garb your favorite three shirts or pants, toss em on the sofa and see what looks best. I'm tempted to say that you'll be happiest with a paisley, forest green or a maroon.

I can't do silver or white accents because I'm a slobl. can yu describe the lighting and directions of windows. If you can give me a measurement I can slap togther a icture of what we're working with.

 

[Ditto Much]

Originally posted by MoFo
Well, one of them is about 50 feet by 50 feet, I would say.
And I wanted my new bedroom to be some other colour like a muted green/grey or something. The bedroom is about 40 feet by 50 feet.

redo those measurements, or I want you as my own. thats almost 5000sqft, at todays current prices thats running somewhere in the $8-12,000 per month range!!!!

 

[MoFo]

Well, I'm at work so I just did an estimate with paces. Um...

10 feet is my desk... So ..

20 x 25 is the living room.
And the bedroom is about 2/3 of that.

The lighting is just a front bay window facing the east.

It's going to be one of the new places that I will be choosing to move to in March.

Hahahahahaha, I am SO bad with estimating measurements.

 

[MoFo]

Basically, they are both bigger rooms that anything I've ever lived in so I wanted to paint it something other than white. And red is definitely my preference but wanted to know if it would do anything drastic to a room.

I've only been in a really fire-engine red room and I hated it. It was so unnerving.
But I've seen deep red rooms in magazines and they look so nice with old furniture and woods that I am planning to dig for in antique stores.

Will red make it seem to close in?

 

[Ditto Much]

Originally posted by MoFo
Well, I'm at work so I just did an estimate with paces. Um...

10 feet is my desk... So ..

20 x 25 is the living room.
And the bedroom is about 2/3 of that.

The lighting is just a front bay window facing the east.

It's going to be one of the new places that I will be choosing to move to in March.

Hahahahahaha, I am SO bad with estimating measurements.

yeah the width of your hand isn't 9 inches regardless of what all the boys have told you.

(my desk is massive and its 6 feet on the short side and 8 on the long)

 

[Sunshyne Jones]

i'm told that one dark wall in a room can 'push' the wall back further to the eye anyway, which opens up the room

so they say on those freakin' design shows anyway.

 

[Ditto Much]

Originally posted by MoFo
Basically, they are both bigger rooms that anything I've ever lived in so I wanted to paint it something other than white. And red is definitely my preference but wanted to know if it would do anything drastic to a room.

I've only been in a really fire-engine red room and I hated it. It was so unnerving.
But I've seen deep red rooms in magazines and they look so nice with old furniture and woods that I am planning to dig for in antique stores.

Will red make it seem to close in?

Reds a very drastic effect I find. but if your going to do it make it a stripe texture. Paint the wall the red you want in an eggshell. But some think wide masking tape. Take the tape and stick it on the wall in stripes. repaint the wall in the exact same red but this time use a high gloss. Carefully remove the tape and now you have a really wild pattern that will hold real nice.

Back leather and dark wood, facing east with a good sizd window. I keep seeing velvet deep blue, however a phofur white rug works as well.

 

[graham]

the deep reds are good for small rooms, like a den, but if you're talking about a larger bedroom, and it seems to be fairly good-sized, it's a lot of red. If you also paint the ceiling red, I dunno. It limits what you can do with the rest of it, but that's cool if you like it. I love red rooms, but smaller scale stuff.

 

[j bunny 2000]

I think a red room can be really sophicated if done right. I would chose a warmer tone rather than one with blue under tones. I'm in the process of designing my mother's dining room and we decided to go with red becase we have so much oriental furniture and art which would be perfect with it.

Because you chose such a loud colour you have to make sure you choose more subdued furniture and accents to go with it in more natural and neutral tones. Black, white and woods would work really well. I like the idea of gold or silver accents because i think it would really polish the space. Too much red will be overkill. I would only paint the ceiling red if it was a room you aren't planning on spending much time in.

 

[Aphrodite]

I find painting a room one colour is really boring. try having an accent wall(say where the bed or couch would be) of red or orange, while the other three a more calming muted colour. this can also help break up large rooms into diferent areas.


we just painted our condo light blue(you saw it sunny) and it looks great.. not my first choice but really refreshing and well, it looks like money. I'm still fighting marcia for my orange accent wall tho

okee tmts (toomuchtradingspaces)

 

[Ditto Much]

I can't believe anything they do will stand the test of time.

 

[Aphrodite]

Originally posted by j bunny 2000
I think a red room can be really sophicated if done right. I would chose a warmer tone rather than one with blue under tones. I'm in the process of designing my mother's dining room and we decided to go with red becase we have so much oriental furniture and art which would be perfect with it.

Because you chose such a loud colour you have to make sure you choose more subdued furniture and accents to go with it in more natural and neutral tones. Black, white and woods would work really well. I like the idea of gold or silver accents because i think it would really polish the space. Too much red will be overkill. I would only paint the ceiling red if it was a room you aren't planning on spending much time in.

what he said

 

[Aphrodite]

Originally posted by Ditto Much
I can't believe anything they do will stand the test of time.

hell no.

I'm actually more into Debbie Travis.

 

[j bunny 2000]

Debbie travis rules!! I love the painted house and facelift. She has so many cool ideas. I like shows with decent budgets for the designers.