Paint dilemma: Travertine fireplace vs all paint colors

last year

Hello! We are in the end stages of a remodel, having just changed out floors and painted our north facing family room SW Origami White. While the Origami is very pretty elsewhere, not surprisingly, it seems very gray on the mostly ’shaded’ interior-facing walls flanking the original travertine fireplace. I’m seeking guidance on paint colors that may brighten those two flanking panels and the interior niches while avoiding painting the entire room again. Note that the window niches still have the prior owner’s very creamy-yellow paint. My question: should I be looking at paint colors with less gray undertones vs a higher LRV than origami (LRV 76) or should I just try origami but at 50 or 75%? This space opens up to the rest of the house, so the Origami White connects all the rooms together…I have a few SW paint stickers hanging here at the advice of our project manager (Shoji White, White Sesame, Creamy, and Westhighland White). I’ve also tried small patches of BM White Dove (LRV 83.16) and F&B Wevet (LRV 82.22) that I had sitting around. Baseboards are painted SW Pure White. Thank you so much!

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PRO

Patricia Colwell Consulting

last year

IMO you have no layers of lighting and what you have needs to all be the same . I like LED 4000K bulbs and IMO the lowest K value would be 3500K that way you have at least no yellow cast to antyhing . BTW this is why IMO you choose wall color last when all your furniture has been at least chosen and you have samples of all those pieces to work with . I do not think a very pure white will ever work with travertine .

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Comments (9)

bearbev
last year
Looks like a great space coming together! Do you think the lighting plan for the space is adequate? You'll want to get lighting set to aid in making final paint selections. I do know that SW Creamy leans more yellow in case that's still a contender.
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BeverlyFLADeziner
last year
The Origami appears to be too gray for the Travertine, but Travertine is tricky because it has so many different shades of white/tan.

I would stay with a color that is neutral, not leaning warm or cool.
cat_ky
last year
I would pick a very light shade of a real color. I dont think, you will be happy with any white with your travertine.
PRO
Norwood Architects
last year
Can you cover the entire end wall with the same travertine that's currently on your fireplace wall? I will suggest that you add more lighting fixtures to brighten the room as the number of fixtures I'm seeing in the photographs seems far too few for such a large space.
porkchop_z5b_MI
last year
What I'm seeing in the pics is that the floor looks pink next to the travertine, which is throwing another issue into the mix. I agree with the advice above to pick an actual COLOR that plays nice with everything.
jmll12
Original Author
last year
Thank you all so much for your helpful insight. Norwood Architects, BeverlyFLADeziner, Patricia Colwell, and jackowskib, I will certainly look at the lighting set up - the natural light of the photo doesn’t help, and it’s true that we have all the other lights (floor lamps, side table, etc) in the basement with the furniture which we are moving back up this weekend. It sounds like all of those elements will help inform our choice. There are some additional ceiling lights hidden behind the photo frame but they do not help light the higher ceiling near the niches. Thanks Norwood Architects for your suggestion on adding more travertine - I don’t think we are up for finishing the entire end wall with more material right now (post-COVID remodel costs are higher than we had anticipated) - but I appreciate that lighting will help, and aesthetically, an entire wall of travertine would look pretty impressive! Perhaps next year! cat_ky and mxk3- once we have all the furniture in/lights in place, we’ll also consider a “real” color if the Origami still doesn’t work. I appreciate all of you so much! Depending on where you in the world, wishing you all a Happy Thanksgiving.
tracefloyd
last year
I would leave it as is. if you paint the two corners to match the Travertine, you will then have a creamy/yellow arrow pointing up.

The way it stands now, you have a nice vertical element in the marble highlighted by a rich neutral wall color on the sides.

The greige wall color also bridges the gap between the pinkish floors (as someone mentioned) and the yellowish travertine.
djacob Z6a SE WI
last year
I may be the odd person out….. would actually go dark in the window nooks (not black) but maybe pickup the gray coloring from the floor. Perhaps the floors would not look quite so pink then. And the color would bring depth to the room which looks quite monochromatic at this point.

debra