Decorating and Design - What color do I paint my walls? I have 2 dark blue sofas and 1 yellow sofa.

Dear Readers:

I am very much into contemporary modern furniture. I currently have 3 couches in the living room. I have 2 dark blue ones (The love seat and the three seater) in the living room, and I have one yellow one (the single one). The small tables are with silver accent and wood color.

I have 2 yellow walls and 2 blue walls. Am sick of them. :(

I am going to be moving to a new place and we need to paint the walls. I want something nice for the living room am sick of my walls.

I need some ideas.

Should I paint the entire room in a light beige?

Should I get and paint the top of the walls white then put a white divider and put on the bottom a dark blue.

What should i do??

I have no decorating sense. As you can read by my description of my home its not great.

What can I do??? :confused:

if you really want a contemporary look, using a chair rail with 2 different wall colors is the last thing you want to do. chair rails are a very traditional detail. also, forget the beige! that won't do a thing for your room.

instead, go for minimalistic. for a really contemporary look, keep it simple. how yellow is the yellow sofa? if it's bright yellow, i'd use it as the punch of color, and go cool & calm on the walls, almost monochromatic, with the blue sofas (pale gray/blue). or if you're ready for crisp, white walls, go all white & get a really large, bold piece of artwork or a contemporary geometrical area rug that uses your colors, with maybe the addition of a punch of red. red/yellow/blue is a classic triad color scheme.

you might get a couple contemporary decorating magazines & look for ideas that appeal to you. if you're feeling creative, you might even go for painting a subtle geometric pattern on your walls (or one wall).

Annette:

Thanks for all the advice, however, I need you to explain all that in laymans terms.. LOL.

I have pictures of the furniture, if youi would like to see .

I am thinking of purchasing a slip cover for the yellow sofa..




Thanks

I love yellow, blue, & crisp white. Blue & white accessories maybe with a touch of yellow or red. Annette, I can see the large abstract or geometric painting pulling all the colors together. Wow!

So should this be a flat, eggshell, satin, semi gloss or gloss finish for the white..

I think you are right.. I put my blue furniture behind a white backgrounds and it looks nice, the yellow just looks ok.

Should I do White or like a very light grayish white? :confused:

By the way the I have two tables.

Two round tables, they have silver accents and are maple wood color, with glass ontop.

please read my Stickie note at the top of the Decorating forum, called Choosing Paint Colors 101. it will explain why trying to pick a wall color in the manner that you are, is the most difficult way of doing things. you have no inspiration, no direction, and yet your choices are almost limitless. how could you possibly make a decision at this point? find something - an area rug, a piece of artwork, anything multi-colored or with a pattern - and then pull one of those colors out for the wall color. it will make your decision soooo much easier! at this point, all you have to work with are 2 solid blue sofas. you said you're considering covering the yellow one, so you don't even really have that to work with. so the question now is, what color of walls go with solid blue sofas! the answer? darn near any color! you need to decide on more of the elements of the room, before saddling yourself with some random wall color, that may or may not limit your choices for those other elements.

does that make sense?

Annette:

Your right! Am clueless! :wall:

I am not good at any of this.

Please help me ! :o

i'm trying!! :)

forget the paint for now. do you have any accessories that you want to reuse in the new house? anything contemporary, bold, colorful, etc that you want to use with the blue & yellow sofas?

if not, do this: go shopping!

look for an area rug to use inbetween the sofas, under the tables, to define the conversation space. it should have blue, yellow and some other colors (red would be great), and be contemporary (meaning the design or pattern should be graphic or geometrical - color blocked or striped or something - NOT oriental or traditional).

in addition to the rug, look for a good sized piece of artwork that can be a focal point for the room. it should be contemporary (meaning the subject matter should be abstract or geometrical - no Monets or country prints or anything traditional - think paint splatters or big brush strokes or just blocks of color or one single bloom of a flower, etc - but BOLD. it should be bold colored, and contain blue, yellow and some other colors - red would be great).

also look for throw pillows for the sofas. if the rug & artwork have red, you can throw a red pillow on each sofa & everything will be tied together.

then, depending on what you find, THEN you can think about paint color.

of course, this room needs to blend with the other rooms in the house. so, if it's right off the kitchen, the kitchen's decor needs to be considered. if you've got knotty pine country cabinets all over the kitchen, you're going to have a hard time tieing these rooms together. if, on the other hand, you've got white cabinets in the kitchen, then you'll be okay.

by the way......what's the flooring in this room? and the woodwork? is there a fireplace? windows? any coverings on the windows?

Annette:

Thanks for the advice.

I will get right on finding a piece of artwork.

THANKS