bridging the gap with paint

13 years ago

I need some paint color advice and you ladies rock in that area!

I am getting ready to do a makeover with new flooring and paint in our dining room, which most of the time serves as our home office but by putting our laptops, etc. away, can easily slip back into dining room mode when needed.

It is situated between two other rooms (living room and kitchen/family room) that can't be seen from each other with french doors between each transition on perpendicular walls.

I have gone with gray walls and silver metals in the family room/kitchen and with golden beige walls with brass and bronze accents in the living room. There are numerous strong black accents and furniture pieces in both rooms.

The dining room which lays between these two rooms currently has deep, dark wine colored walls. They were fine when we just used it as a dining room, but now that we are in there daily for office work, it's dark and oppressive and we want to lighten things up.

So, my question is this. What would a good wall color be that would coordinate well with both the gray and the golden beige in the two adjacent rooms? I definitely tend to gravitate towards neutrals. As a side note, there will be a lot of black in the dining room/office as well, in the form of large glass front hutch, mirrored and black table, and black leather parsons dining chairs.

Here is a pic of the living room where you can see a peek of the french doors that lead to the dining room on the right. I'll do a pic of kitchen/family room in replies:

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Comments (8)

blondepegasus
Original Author
13 years ago
Here is the kitchen. The door you see is the french door that leads to the dining room/office. I need a color that looks good with both the gray of the kitchen/family room and with the golden beige of the living room:
blondepegasus
Original Author
13 years ago
By the way, the new flooring will run thru the dining room and living room and will match the existing flooring in the kitchen and family room. Here is the current office color and you can also see the hutch, which will be staying:
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indygo
13 years ago
I can't tell the color of the kitchen. It looks blue on my monitor. But you could continue with a lighter version of the gold OR something like Manchester Tan. (It looks gray or tan depending on the light and doesn't seem to look bad next to anything.)
awm03
13 years ago
I'd color key it to your LR so the design & function flow together. Your kitchen is more utilitarian, which disconnects it from the DR functionally, and the door looks like it cuts the kitchen off from the DR pretty much anyway.

In other words, use the LR as a color cue & ignore the kitchen design.
blondepegasus
Original Author
13 years ago
indygo girl - It's a deep gray color w/no blue tint...almost a charcoal but not quite that dark. I will take a look at the tan you mentioned. Thanks!

awm03 - I hadn't even thought about referencing one room over the other. Thanks for pointing out it's something to consider. The thing is, we hardly every go into the living room. I know it's an outdated notion, but to us it's that formal room we keep clean for company...LOL

We spend most of our time in the kitchen/family room and the door to the dining room/office is nearly always open, so the line of vision goes directly into it no matter where we are in the family room/kitchen.
sweeby
13 years ago
Your living room seems to be at the 'far warm' end of the color spectrum, and your kitchen at the 'far cool' end -- so yeah, a toughie...

For that reason, I'm thinking that your existing burgundy or something close to it (plum maybe?) is probably your best bet.

If the real problem is lighting, why not try more lighting as the solution? Maybe a floor lamp to provide perfect task lighting exactly where you need it? Then maybe move the lamps to the corners on dimmers for dining room duty?
gmp3
13 years ago
I'd pick one of the colors, probably the beige and use the other as an accent in accessories, etc.
ratherbesewing
13 years ago
Totally agree with gmp3. I would paint the walls the same as the living room. 3 rooms in a row with 3 different paint colors is too jarring (for me).