Hi dear houzz community. My rowhome has long narrow first floor. The windows located on opposite sides of the long room and exposed to south and north. There is a stair to the second floor on the south side of the house where there two more windows let the light in. The ceiling are 9 feet tall. The first floor has nice moldings and baseboards and I also installing large mirrors in the dining area that located by the south window which will reflect even more light in. South part of the room gets tons of light , but north part (kitchen and tv room) are dark. I installed a lot of ceiling light that I use even in bright day when I am in the kitchen.

I am lost at what color to select to paint the walls in this bright/dark long room. For 20 years we had yellow color and it nicely worked with white trim and molding but not very good with red oak floors and light cherry kitchen. I see most of the designers paint the walls white and I see why and I love white color yet I have some hesitations to use it in my house, such as: it will not show off beautiful moldings due to lack of contrast, it will look too bright on the tall wall of the staircase. I have few large pieces of art paintings where there all of the colors, very bright and colorful. I have natural wood dining table and chairs. I will buy sofa and chair for seating. I will not buy any area rugs.

For 2 larger bedrooms I choose smoke, black pepper and coral gables, all bm.

I need help with all first floor and staircase and these two can't be split by colors, there is no break in their flow. In an effort to select not yellow I put so many other color swatches on the wall and removed them one by one hoping to leave the one i like and i removed all in the end. Please help! Thank you so much.