I am brand new to this site. My teen daughter has been in the hospital and will be home in two weeks. Her best friend and I are painting her bedroom & reorganizing it to welcome her home and make it more serene. The new carpet will be a light tan. She has some black and white furniture. She is studying and loves photography, so we are going to buy some black and white prints and hang some of her work too. She has some coffee/gold/tan colors:buddha head and shell capiz lamp. I am thinking pale aqua or some light blues and/or greens with tan accents (love subtl sprinkle show palette by leehutchings. Any suggestions would be welcome.

I used to do a fair amount of work for galleries and black and white art really seemed to pop from darker, neutral walls. Given the tan carpet I think I would be tempted to turn your thinking and put a neutral on your walls. I would go with a darker value but of the same hue as the carpeting (a real paint store will be more than happy to lend you a complete color fan). Then you could introduce your color scheme with accents, fabrics and so forth. You could even get away with intensifying any number of the colors of the palettes above. I think you would find this to be very comforting and dramatic. An aqua ceiling in the right hue and value could be very soothing? You could replace the ceiling fixture with a simple, inexpensive ($30-40 with 4 or so lights) halogen track type fixture to highlight the art on the walls. The color of halogens is really nice too. Make your daughter her own photo gallery?

See especially the bottom image in this link. Cinema Gallery use warm grays that are almost tan looking throughout the space in different values.

Cinema Gallery

Heartland use the same colors but the lighting is less specific.

Heartland Gallery

I tend to like Benjamin Moore but most of the major paint brands have online programs where you can choose colors and paint your room (or one like it) virtually to get an idea of what things might look like. Many companies also have little bottles or pouches of paint with many of the colors in their paint lines. This allows you to paint about a 4'x4' square for a few bucks to see if you have the color you want before buying gallons.

This is just a concept of what I mean. These are not the colors you want! Look elsewhere in this post for better choices. The ceiling is turquoise and may have too much color. The image is from the Benjamin Moore paint program if you want to play with it yourself. It gives you the concept though.

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If you are covering a dark color or if you decide to go with my suggestion it will save you some time and money if you put down a primer as your first coat. Have the store tint it the same as your finish coat.

I hope your daughter is on the road to recovery, by the way. Welcome to Colour Lovers.

Gallery clients use these for windows and sometimes for labeling shows. If used with restraint, they can work in bedrooms and so forth. These are easy to apply and generally come off fairly easily. If they have been on for a while you sometimes have to hit them with a hair dryer and then grab the residue with Goof Off, Oops or something.

Wall Words

was tempted to put my own suggestions in here, but i love just perfect's photo. i once had a place painted VERY similar & that would have been my own suggestion, but a photo really is worth a thousand words!

*thumbs up* just perfect

I am drawn to suggest a lean toward greens as an accent or as the ceiling in the above photo from Just Perfect Colors. Green is about healing and regeneration (I found this link for more info http://www.artelladailymuse.com/?c=132&a=13372 ) this is what it says about green
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Green


If you are attracted to the color green, you might possess some of the following personality traits: understanding, self-controlled, adaptable, sympathetic, compassionate, generous, humble, nature loving, and romantic. You value stability, balance and persistence. When you start something, you finish it. You are a good citizen, a respectable neighbor, and a concerned parent. You are inclined to be frank, moral, and sensitive to social etiquette. You are an affectionate and loyal friend, lover, and spouse. An attraction to this color signifies healing, regeneration, compassion, love of the earth, and harmony with nature and her laws. You normally make decisions from the heart. You are probably deeply attached to the feeling side of life. You exhibit trust and faith in love. You are generous and giving. You often give yourself space so you can give others theirs.

If you like green, you are capable of making decisions and sound judgments, and do well in negotiation. You have a strong sense of prosperity consciousness. You are normally balanced, content, centered. You are usually open and communicate from the heart. If you are “stuck” in green, you could find yourself exhibiting jealousy, selfishness, and greed. If this is the case, add a little red or orange to your surroundings to bring a lively element into your life and to compensate for your naturally tranquil temperament.
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maybe green for the bedspread and accessories? or how about dark green frames for the black and white prints. Some gauzy lacey sheers, layered, for the windows, with subtle greens and maybe hint of peach for that bit of girliness.

some other random ideas - hang a prism in the window to make rainbows in the sun and hang a windchime (smalll is good) somewhere in the room where it might catch air currents and ring occasionallly (both good feng shui things for chi balance).

Finally, trust your gut.

Your daughter is lucky to have you watching over her, hope all goes well.

Thx so much just perfect kaleidiscope lizcrimson,manekineko, red eye & cooler, i love all the ideas esp jpc! i brought a sample of the carpet home & have my daughter's best friend with me today. we are going to the benjamin moore store to get paint samples--yeah!

please let us know what you come up with. :)

lizcrimson wrote:

please let us know what you come up with. :)

Yes please! And how your daughter likes your work and is doing.

By the way, do you have a Pier One or a Michael's store near you? If you have a Michael's there should be a book of ideas when you walk in. Buy it for $1 and walk out of the store. Then walk back in. There will be a coupon in the back for 20 or 25 percent off your entire purchase. Michael's sells my fave, dirt cheap frames for ephemeral photography presentation. The glass pops out the front of the thin plastic and you just slip photos in and replace the glass. Very elegant looking. I think, with cheesy matte cutouts they are like $10 for 11x14 frames with a 5x7 opening.

By the way, save those colors. I always encourage clients to save pieces of the paint stirring sticks. Scribble the paint name, code and formula on one side. You will have your own isolated color chips, as painted, to go shopping for accessories, fabrics and accents. Some have liked the idea so much they drilled a hole through them all and made custom color fans.

It is also not a bad idea to paint out a swatch on water color paper or something. File it away with the codes and all. If the room fades and you want it back exactly as you painted it? You just take the swatch in and have it scanned. This is especially helpful if you bought paint from a company that kills its color lines and codes on a regular basis. Benjamin Moore is stable though. Your paint store probably stored a sample and the formula? Try that in a box store like Home Depot.

I keep a database with the colors ever selected for clients. It has come in handy. Somehow the printouts on the cans/buckets always get painted over?

Just Perfect Color wrote:

By the way, save those colors. I always encourage clients to save pieces of the paint stirring sticks. Scribble the paint name, code and formula on one side. You will have your own isolated color chips, as painted, to go shopping for accessories, fabrics and accents. Some have liked the idea so much they drilled a hole through them all and made custom color fans.

I save all my paint can lids. They have some of the paint colour inside, and sometimes you can still read the formula sticker on top of the can (if I haven't been too messy when painting...) I put them in ziplock bags and keep them in a file cabinet. They're kind of big, but it works for me.

I got the paint company to send me a deck. I really wanted to get a full set of paint chips like they have in the store (to use at school), but they wouldn't even give me a price. They said I should just keep taking as many free ones from the store as I wanted, and they would send me a deck to use. I really wanted the chips for some projects, but I do love the paint deck. I've used that a LOT.

lizcrimson wrote:

I really wanted the chips for some projects, but I do love the paint deck. I've used that a LOT.

You know I never thought to ask the paint company for chips, but I have made a few big collages out of cut up ones from the store - one thing that was nice about coming here is finding out there are other weirdos leaving with pocketfulls of the things

So when is CL gonna get on board with sherwin-williams to produce a paint chip series? :)

manekineko wrote:

lizcrimson wrote:

I really wanted the chips for some projects, but I do love the paint deck. I've used that a LOT.

You know I never thought to ask the paint company for chips, but I have made a few big collages out of cut up ones from the store - one thing that was nice about coming here is finding out there are other weirdos leaving with pocketfulls of the things

So when is CL gonna get on board with sherwin-williams to produce a paint chip series? :)

I am actually surprised the paint companies are not supporting this site more directly. It would seem a natural connection.