Do you want to create two different spaces? If so, you could float a tall double sided bookcase as a room divider and divide the color there with a hard edge. So use a bookcase like this: with the side of it against the wall where you want the separation to occur. Make sense?

i think your paint idea could be really interesting. why not try painting a wide vertical stripe or several narrow stripes in a color that coordinates with the 2 colors between the rooms.

I like Kerri's idea...but if you don't have room for furniture, adding a flat stock wood material, like a 1x6 and painting or staining it to match the window and door trim will give you the necessary transition.

We have also done a column at a transition area like that. Depending on your decor, you could do a contemporary version or a reclaimed one that is more distressed looking. Adds texture and personality without taking up a lot of space.

how about painting the column and the beams a dark colour that separate the rooms visually and have the dining room and kitchen painted in 2 colours that you have in mind. e.g. column & beams-dark brown, dining room-magenta (ceiling a lighter magenta), dining room-pink (ceiling a lighter pink) and install beaded curtains above the estrade to separate the rooms?

On the set of NCIS, they use dark columns (deep blue or purple, can't quite tell which,) to transition between two wall colors --often other jewel tones -- orange or red. I really like it, and I am planning on building shallow columns out out wallboard, perhaps with shelves on the sides instead of the front!, with the same colors when I finish my basement.

My husband and I came across this same delimma a few years ago. We have an open floor plan where the living area and kitchen are seperated only by a half wall one the right side. The left side is one continuous wall that spans the entire length of both rooms and no ceiling seperation. We ended up installing an 8-foot piece of crown moulding vertically on the long wall to seperate the 2 areas and painted it to match the rest of the trim and baseboards. It worked well with our traditional decor at the time. We have sense removed the moulding and painted all the walls one color trying to give our home a more modern feel. Now, if i were going to recreate the seperation, I would do what I've seen and read about in decor mags and blogs and install a 4'x8' piece of furniture-grade plywood where the moulding used to be and paint or stain it a dark color. (The rest of the walls are light gray) If my walls were a darker color, I would probably paint it white. In my opinion it's a sleek, modern look and budget-friendly to boot. ;)
Good luck!

Assuming we're using the space in photo, painting the structural details (slanted beams across windows, ceiling beams) one color, and the flat ceiling inside the ceiling beams a different color (brown/turquoise, black/red, gray/any color). Choice of color will determine the style: black/red-edgy, modern; gray/any color-modern, sophisticated; white/red-campy or less formal. Painting the supporting column and ceiling beam the contrasting color creates a demarcation between areas. That could be accented by hanging something from that beam (out of traffic pattern) such as a metal sculpture, shoji screens, Moroccan carved panels. Putting them on a movable track would allow varying the demarcation. Or a floor-to-ceiling drape in coordianting fabric is glamorous and softens the hard edges. Choice of colors will have a lot to do with how they are used. A black/red combo would be used different from white/turquoise.

Stop the paint color at a corner. You could paint the shared wall a neutral shade and paint each end wall a different color to separate the spaces.

Like you, I agonized over the same dilemma. Ours is a contemporary house with rooms flowing into each other so we had the painter paint the rooms as if there were molding dividing them, painting one wall and turning the corner with another color. We didn't paint two colors on the same wall, but you could if you wanted. Draw a straight line or a zig zag or an arc...anything. Paint one side the color you like and the other side another. It will work. If the colors you like go well together, the rooms will look good together. After 11 years, we are changing our colors to the new gray look, but still several different grays.

I split a 25 foot long by 12 foot tall wall into two spaces with paint. I used
Created a 1O" wide border around all four edges in a pale cement color and a 10" wide stripe running vertically from floor to ceiling. I then ended up with two large rectangles 10'4" tall by 11'4" wide. I painted the living area a deep warm grey and the dining area a muddy chartreuse. The adjacent walls received the same paint border treatment. Since there was not any trim crown or baseboard the pale cement color became the trim.

Smile18 - do you have any pics you could share? What a great idea. Sounds gorgeous!

My livingroom and diningroom are basically one long runway space and I chose to use two colors on the same paint strip but a few colors apart. I used the darker one in the room that gets less light and the lighter one, of course, in the brighter room and then kept all trimwork bright white. It was pretty simple and was the less expensive way to do it if you like the same colors but different saturations. Good Luck wiht your project!

I have a fairly new house with kitchen, great room and dining room all together. We book ended the walls with two different colors of paint. A cobble brown and latte (sherman williams) looks great. Have fun.

Yes, I would love to see pictures from Smile 18. What a neat solution. Otherwise simplest solution is to install a piece of moulding atleast 8" wide vertically. Have it look intentional, like it is part of the architecture. Paint it the color of the rest of the trim in the space.

In connection with the molding strip idea, why not try texture on one side of the molding and no texture on the other. That would give you a couple of options. Either paint each side a different color or paint them both the same color and use a darker glaze to get into the crevasses (sp?) of the textured wall. That will give you a great transition without being a jarring color change.

How about same color but slowly fade lighter to dark...or dark to light.
http://twotulipstalking.blogspot.com/

We have an open floor plan where the kitchen & dining are at one end of the space and the living room at the other and they're all open into each other .. the side walls both run the length of the area with no breaks ... I plan to paint the area above the cabinets a mellow-yellow and where the cabinets end and the long wall begins - I thinking of using starting a stripe pattern - alternating the mellow yellow with either green or a different shade of the yellow ... would that look OK ? ...

We just recently had part of the wall taken out that separated a formal living room with our family room. Because the opening is so wide we opted not to have trim installed. Now I'm ready to paint but don't know what to do about the opening. The family room/kitchen is already painted aqua. I want to use a pale gray in the other room. Which color,should the opening be?

my kitchen and living room are connected but have no divider... i have painted my living room olive green with white trim but i want to paint my kitchen another color.... my son says stay with olive but my daughter says use another color (oh yeah and its paneling i am painting) I would like to do it something other than olive color but want to keep the white trim.... help please... the cabinets are brown