Decorating and Design - Making the room seem "taller"?

We're in the process of redecorating the living room - it's roughly 14x17, with 8ft ceilings. We've decided on a main wall color - Ralph Lauren Burlap (love those sampler packs to try colors), and our baseboards/molding will be white.

However, my boyfriend wanted to add a little color - like a deep wine or maroon. So the idea was to add a chair rail, paint the wine/maroon color on bottom and the burlap color on top. I'm all for adding color, but I'm afraid adding a chair rail will kind of cut the room and make it seem "squat", for lack of a better term. I would like to see the room look "taller", and I was aiming for the wall color to be the burlap only, with white moldings/ceiling and maybe the deep wine or maroon curtains/other accents.

Will cutting the room in half with color make it appear smaller?
Any advice would be great!

Thanks
Joanne :)

Hi cunninj3,
Welcome to the DIY Forums.
As long as you use the darker color on the bottom of the wall it should not "crunch" the room. Lighter colors make the room look bigger and darker ones make it appear smaller. Chair rails should be no more than 36" but can be a bit shorter if that height seems too tall for your preferences. None of my chairs would hit a rail at that height. I would not make it lower than 30" as this would look "odd".
Good luck with your project and post back if you have further questions.

Thanks for the welcome and reply!

Another question, though (and this may be merely preference, however, given I have just about no eye for putting colors together, I think I should ask...) If we'd do the maroon on bottom/burlap on top - would white moldings/ceiling create too much of a contrast? Would it be better paint the ceiling/moldings with a color a shade or two lighter than the burlap?

Thanks again for the help! With choosing all these colors, I'm starting to think I'm completely colorblind!!! :D

Joanne

The idea of the crown molding is to make a transition from the ceilings to the walls. To make them look as one. In the days gone by moldings were plastered into the joint between the ceiling and the wall. Today we have the easier to install wood or man made products. The moldings can be painted to match the ceilings or can be painted to match the walls. These are all a personal preference. There are no real standards when it comes to decorating rather there are guidlines to make things easier. Nothing set into stone. If you want to experiment with the choices you can buy an inexpensive piece of molding and cut it into several sections. paint each section with a color choice and place it to see how it looks. This way you are not stuck with a choice you may not like when its done.
Good Luck with your project and post back if you have further questions.

if height is what you're going for, i'd recommend painting an accent wall with the burgundy, floor to ceiling. that will give you the punch of color without chopping the room in half (more or less) and making it seem "squat", which the chair rail WILL do. it won't be super "squat", but it will draw the eye to a very prominant horizontal line all the way around the room, which will visually reduce the size & height of the room. but at least you're putting the darker color on the bottom.


regarding painting the chair rail white, how dark is the "burlap" color?

Thanks for the reply... the more I think about it, the more I'm not liking the 2-color walls. We probably won't add a chair rail if we're going for the one-color wall look, but we'll still most likely do white baseboards/casings. We're still split over crown moldings - I want them, he doesn't! Now we'd just have to find the right wall to be the "accent" wall (we're trying to figure out just what exactly the focal point of our room is, besides the TV!!! :p )

Regarding the burlap color, you can see a sample at
http://www.rlhome.polo.com/rlhome/products/paint/items.asp?haid=50&f=lp&start=0
"Burlap" is partway down the page. It's a looks little on the darker side, once we painted the sample on the wall, but I still like it.

Thanks for the advice!
Joanne :)

the burlap is a very nice colour - however, once you've got it all over the walls, it could well make the room seem darker than you expect.

perhaps for your walls you might consider using a lighter tone of the same hue, but regardless of what you do, be sure that the white you choose is a warm creamy shade.

a good rule of thumb that i have personally discovered (and others have agreed with) is this: pick a color you like, such as the Burlap. then, when you go to buy it, purchase the same color but a shade or two lighter. when it's on all the walls in your room, floor to ceiling, the original color will usually be too dark. even if you paint it on a 2x3 foot piece of poster board and love it, it's nothing compared to how it will look on all the walls floor to ceiling. go a shade or two lighter, and you'll end up with what you've got pictured in your mind. trust me on this!

as for the crown moulding - if all your trim will be white, and your ceiling will be white, the crown will just be a nice finishing touch. an added architectural detail that will be subtle. i think your boyfriend's fear is that the crown will make the ceiling seem even lower. but as long as it's white & the ceiling's white, it won't. keep it on the smaller side though (same size or smaller than the baseboards - not bigger).

as for deciding on an accent wall - think more about where you can benefit most from the splash of color. examples would be, if your sofa is also a burlap-ish color, then it won't look very good up against a wall painted Burlap, so that would be a good wall to paint burgundy. or maybe the wall with the window could be done in the burgundy, and then it would show off draperies that have a burlap-ish colored background & give a better contrast. or maybe the wall with the fireplace would be prettier wth the burgundy than the Burlap. .........that sort of thing. it doesn't necessarily have to be the wall that you see first when entering the room. ie The Focal Wall. just put the color where it will do the most good.