Also in the south. Have ceiling fans in all bedrooms, the keeping room, and 2 on the screened porch. All ceilings are white; all fans are dark. I've never cared for white fans.

We just installed ceiling fans in our new build and decided between white or dark wood fans based on the room itself and its furnishings, not ceiling color. All ceilings are white in our home. The living area with a brown leather sofa and rocker, cherry furniture and one distressed white media console got a dark fan as did a small multi-purpose room and the master bedroom with mahogany furniture. These rooms flooring is hickory hardwood and walls a light gray. 2 guest rooms with light carpeting, pale blue-green walls and light blue/white bedspreads and pillows got white fans. This was what the lighting expert at the shop where we bought the fans said to do and was what we had always planned to do. But whatever feels and looks right to you can be done.

I'm trying to think if we have any white ceilings...maybe one. I have a dark blade in the living and dining rooms (yellow ceiling) with dark hard goods. Light blades in the entry and bedrooms.

I manage rentals so my opinion is on the practical side, darker fans show less dust and cleaning marks. The white ones seem to yellow. Of course this may be because they were cheap in the first place

i prefer stained wood blades too! only exception is when the bedroom is full of pastel colors or a theme, like all navy and white (including furniture)...

I have one ceiling fan in my open space (LR/DR). It's off-white, the color of my walls and ceiling and I like it because it blends in better. When I bought the house there was a black one (!) and it looked like a giant spider.

I prefer the white ones. We have them in all of our bedrooms and they just blend in.

In FL here, I'm in the same camp as 4Heidesign, that is, I think it depends on the room decor/colors. Dark bladed fans look good in a room w/ dark elements, regardless of ceiling color - not so much in an overall lighter room.

Depends on the room for me. I used to prefer white. We had white in our bedroom until I found a chandelier I had to have. Still miss the fan, but we put in a tower in the corner. Upstairs and in our LR, they are all wood tones The ones upstairs were selected by the boys for their rooms, jointly for the gameroom -- oh, and I just remembered the sewingroom/guest room with the funky ceiling lines has a white one to be less obtrusive. . Our family room has this one -- the subtle approach:

St. Croix Ceiling Fan by Emerson Fans · More Info

So I guess we have both but are going more wood tones -- we have mostly medium and radk tone wood furniture and dark wood floors. We also have high ceilings, and I think that helps with darker fans.

I prefer white fans that disappear into white ceilings.

I've had both and liked them all. Our living room with a cathedral ceiling had an off white fan that blended with the ceiling which I liked. We have a natural cherry fan in our bedroom which matches our furniture and is a nice medium tone.

If you have dark furniture, I prefer a dark fan.

I match the wood or metal tones in the room. Past white fans all yellowed with time, and show dust much faster.

We have 7 ceiling fans in our home: three Casa Blancas and four something elses. I prefer white fans in smaller rooms, and most of our bedrooms are about 12' by 12'. Our Casa Blanca fans are the panama model, two have wood blades. Here's my favorite white bladed fan:

i have the the MinkaAire translucent fan. it's great

Based on those two and by looks, I like the 2nd one better. I have white ones in the bedrooms for the same reasoning of "blending" into the white ceilings...I just put one in the LR, wood colored and very large and was worried about the looks of it, but honestly I don't even notice it.

In the pictures above, each fan works in the room. Im in Texas and can't imagine not having ceiling fans in every room except the kitchen and bathrooms. Actually, I wish we had a fan in our master bath. I love the look of a fan with clean lines, simple design and no light fixture. To me, a fan is a design element so blending wouldn't be a consideration.

We have so many ceiling fans in this house, some are white some are dark wood. The ones I have bought are dark wood. The white ones were here. I have been replacing the white ones as they have problems, I don't care for the white ones. I have some antique Hunter fans from Louisiana that are beautiful and still work great.

I like the second bedroom better overall, so based on those pictures I like the wood tone fan blades. So classic.

I do not like white ceiling fans either - we have ceiling fans in all of our bedrooms, but they were there before we got central A/C. I still use them, however. I prefer stainless steel blades, and we need to replace the one in the guest room, but that is our least used room and gets the least attention. We live close enough to the Pacific Ocean that it does not get all that hot - until recently. We used to have a window unit for A/C, but eventually that became inadequate, especially the summer of 2014.

Like others, I choose (dark or white) depending on the room. Office, spare bedroom (dark decor) and den have med-dark blades. Kitchen, master bath and bedroom, white. All ceilings are white-ish. Even tho my kitchen has a lot of darkish wood, black appliances and decor, I chose white because I wanted the fan to disappear instead of add another dark element.

I prefer wood-toned fans in most spaces. White fans look cheap and juvenile to me and they do seem to yellow over time. They would look okay in a young child's bedroom but down the road I'd want to upgrade it to a wood-tone style. I really like the purple bedroom pictured, but the fan looks like it belongs in a 5-year-old's room or a cheap rental unit.

I live in the South. Well, South Central Texas. We do not have one fan in our entire new build. They always make my eyes burn. I am most often cold in our house.

I prefer the wood tones for ceiling fans.

Since you used the work 'offensive' I would go with blending to the color of the ceiling..but you might go with the opposite and CELEBRATE it with a fancy one like lascax suggested.

I agree with 4Heidesign, peaches12345, busybee3 and everyone else who thinks your choices should depend on the furnishings. I have wood furniture in some of my rooms, and the wood ceiling fans (IMO) feels like it gives the rooms a cohesive feel. BTW, my decor is traditional. However, I do have a white ceiling hugger fan in my sunroom. The room is three walls of windows, and has a white beadboard ceiling. A dark fan may have looked like a big black spider. (Thanks for that visual, Linelle!)

We have this Minka Aire aviation fan in our living room (photo not our room). Our ceiling is white so it really stands out as an architectural/conversation piece. The guys love it!

Our designer Jill's home · More Info

Appreciate everyone's opinions! Our furniture is dark brown and the children's furniture is white.

We are in CT but no a/c so use them all summer. Our house has a mix of white and wood grain blades. The white fans blend in better with the ceiling when not in use. Although I agree the newer, dark wood look nicer, I would prefer they disappear in the room.

show me a picture of a white fan that disappears in the room.

We put them throughout the beachhouse and we used wood ones, mostly sans lights and period (circa 1904).

We used some of these: http://www.periodarts.com/

We also splurged on one from this co for the beachhouse MBR. I love it.

http://www.architecturalfans.com/

In a different home, we used a very traditional nickel fan (no light) and had the blades painted cream to match the creamy ceiling. That worked very well to make it luxe but still "disappear'.

Of course they don't truly disappear but our bedroom ceilings are only 7 feet tall and small rooms so blending in with the white ceiling paint and light colored bedding the white ones don't stand out as much. It is something to consider in small spaces, in my opinion.

Arcy -- maybe I should have explained that in our case, the "fancy" fan was a problem solver for our room. We needed to replace a fan with lights but couldn't fina anything we liked. Without lights on the fan we would have to rely on recessed cans for general lighting -- and there was one on either side of the vaulted ceiling aimed right at the fan creating a giant strobe. We used the cans and not the fan through the winter.

After much looking, we saw the St. Croix in a lighting store. had been looking for a fan with lights so we could avoid the cans, but the dual vertical fans meant the cans were pointing at the empty space between them. It eliminated the strobe! It also broke the bowling alley feeling of the long open space.

MtnRdRedux, that belt driven is great. I would have loved something like that were it not for our strobe issue.

We have ten ceiling fans in our home. One of which is waiting to be installed in the laundry room. Seven have woodtone blades, two have black blades and one that's all white on the sun porch. We both prefer stained wood. Other than our front porch, white wouldn't fit out home at all. Our home is a Victorian Queen Anne Revival with wood floors and stained wood trim. Its filled with a variety of styles of furnishings. MCM, inspired by MCM being my favorite. Lots of wood trim and furnishings so white fans would be out of place.
Unless you want all fans to be the same, I'd go by the feel you want in each room. Since the children have white furniture, a white fan would more than likely work best. I'd recommend getting one with the housing in a metal finish like the lovely one gardenwebcupofkindness (which is the only pretty white ceiling fan I've ever seen) shared above. Not necessarily in that that style, but the contrast. That way if down the road you change their furniture, you can change the blades of the fans to go with room instead of buying all new fans.

I have installed two ceiling fans -- but, I don't like down lights on ceiling fans, so mine don't have the extra. Concealed "Up" lights on ceiling fans are nice as they light the ceiling and give a warm ambiance-- had those on several fans in my previous home.

I have unusual fans, I suppose.

In my sunroom...long and narrow at 8.5 x 18 feet, I needed a fan to cool the space. I went with a retro Minka Aire Gyrette (there is a larger Gyro). Still under renovation...

In what would be a breakfast area for most people, I'm using it for a small family room for my grandkids, I installed the least noticeable fan I could find, in white, no downlight. The Minka Aire New Era. Both fans have remote controls to adjust speed/reverse, etc. but can also be turned off/on at the wall switch.

dyhgarden, we currently have a fan with up lighting and i find i don't like the fan and the light on at the same time because of the 'strobe' effect... did that not bother you? we don' turn on the fan(or light!) on in that room very often, but if we did want the fan and light on at the same time regularly, i would change the fixture...

I agree about the "strobe" and I don't think I ever used the two at the same time. I used the uplight when I needed soft lighting at night. I rarely used the fans at night unless sleeping -- with lights out.

Also in the South have 10 ceiling fans all white like the ceilings, nothing offensive with ceiling fans "Luv my fans"

this is the one on my wish list. The blades retract out of sight when not in use. If you google folding blade fans there are lots from a little to a lot pricey.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfSy-G-DxPk

I don't know if you have pets, but if so, that might matter. Our fan seems to get dusty and frowsy with lint/pet hair even though pets never enter our bedroom. If it was a white fan, I"m guessing the black cat hair would be even worse.

I'm in Florida so fans in every room and patio. Color depends on style of room. A must for me with so many fans is that they have three blades ( quicker easier cleaning) . All my fans except one is a high efficiency type. Bought them all from Hansons fans online because the site makes picking and shopping easier.