Paint choices depend on the flooring, furniture and textiles in the room

More info: So far, we have a reclining sofa and matching chair, and the area rug, which has yellow/gold in it. Hence my thought to paint the walls pale yellow with grey wainscot. We will add flooring, coffee table and end tables later.

You can take a photo of the room and use the online tools provided by the big paint manufacturers to try out colors virtually (I like Benjamin Moore's Personal Color Viewer, but I've also used Sherwin Williams' tool and Behr's).

I used a BM stock image that had wainscoting for this. Sorry about the balloons.

I think the image you sent looks nice, but be careful when picking out a paint, because that looks more like a cream color to me. It does have a hint of yellow, but I'd err on the side of off-white/cream as opposed to possibly having too much yellow coming through. That should help tie in the rug with the yellow tones within the flooring. Hope this helps!

The yellowish paint I'm considering is Banana Pudding Dulux DLX1212-2

The color looks like it could be a bit vibrant for the room on their website, but that also depends on what the light (both natural and artificial) is like in the room as well as the finish of the paint. I think either way, though, a matte finish would look best. If the room is bright, this will help tame the brightness of the yellow and if it is a darker room, this will be able to help the artificial lighting be cast more softly around the room.

Get samples of the colors you're thinking about and paint them on the wall and wainscot to access whether you're satisfied with the intensity of the colors. The photo you provided looks very low contrast to me. I'd prefer to have a bit more contrast between the yellow and gray. Paint the samples on your wall and see if they dry the way you want.

I’d be interested to know about windows and doors in the room relative to the gray choice. Is the rec room north-facing? It’s not in the basement is it?

@littlebug:The rec room is in the basement, so there are just two small, high windows at either end. Some natural light comes in through the outside door at the top of the stairs, which faces west, in the afternoons. The rest of the time, the room is dark and lights need to be on.

Personally, I wouldn’t use gray in a basement, especially with only small high windows.

IMO no two toned walls in a basement without having really high ceilings it will just make the room look shorter and honestly not gray and yellow and for sure you do not choose wall colrbefore flooring is installed.

@Patricia: Thanks for your comment. We were thinking of a very light grey/white floor. We don't want to tear down the wainscot that's already there (it's currently a brick red), so what colours would you suggest for wainscot and walls?