Decorating and Design - afraid of color

my walls are all white. my carpet is a dark mulkled blue/white/gray mixed burber
by bedroom furniture is dark oak. my favorite color is any color of blue
by bedspread is a white/blue wedding ring.. i would like to add more color to
room . should i paint walls maybe 2 shades of blue or is there any other way
to add color without painting walls. i am afraid painting wont go with bedroom
furniture? please advise pawesth1

Painting is probably the cheapest way to add/change color of a room. I wouldn't be overly afraid of the paint not going with the furniture. Since you like blue pick a color you think would like and go for it. You could just paint 1 wall and make sure you like how it will look before painting the whole room.

absolutely! pull a color from your quilt that's either lighter or darker than your carpet's overall color, and paint the wall behind your bed. you can stop there and it's called an 'accent wall' or if you love it & want more color, paint the rest of the room. oak looks great with blue colors, especially if you're doing a sort of country style, like it sounds you are (with the wedding ring quilt and all).

just remember - a whole wall of color will look much darker/brighter than it does on that tiny little paint chip, so find the color you like, but BUY the color a couple shades lighter! then you'll end up with what you wanted. better yet (if you're really scared), paint it on a 2x3 sheet of poster board first & tack that up to your wall & look at it for a couple days at different times of the day (it'll look brighter during the day & darker at night). also, so you don't end up with something tacky/gaudy, go for a grayer blue than a purer blue. it'll be better. trust me.

go for it! be brave ~ if you hate it, you can just paint over it! and instead of stark white (which is hideous) just use a really light creamy beige/taupe/pale blue/gray color. any of those would still be worlds better than the white. :thumbup:

thanks annette

i think i might try painting 1 or 2 walls behind by bed/ the bed sets angle
ways inbetween the corner of 2 walls.. do you think both walls the same color
or 2 separate colors? and do you think white is really that awful? i'm 52 and
when i was young, every room was a different color carpet and rooms were
all different colors. it seemed like nothing went together. so as i got older, it
seemed white was good because you could easily redecorate by just changing
curtains and bedspreads, etc. my daughter in law gives me fits about all
white alls to. thanks for your input.

generally speaking, yes, white is awful. it's void of color & warmth. it drains the life out of wood tones and these days is considered unpainted. it's what you get when you live in an apartment, so usually people want color in their homes.

in the past, every room of the house had a different colored carpet. now, the trend is to create a flow of color throughout the home, starting with the same color carpet in every room, or as few different flooring types as possible. each room can be a different color, but there must be a "color scheme" that pulls it all together to make sense. mainly, you want the "public areas" (entry, living/family rooms, kitchen, dining) to all "go together". the bedrooms can be different since they're usually separated visually by walls & are not public spaces. for example, (and this is a very simplified example), if you have a plaid sofa that's burgundy, navy, hunter green and cream, you could paint your entry burgundy, your living room cream, have your kitchen burgundy & cream gingham check, and the dining room hunter green with burgundy accents. theoretically. it would all be coordinated because of the sofa.

and paint is easily changed. usually by the time you're ready to change the decor, the walls need a fresh coat of paint anyway. so they might as well be a color. at the very least, a cream or beige!

if your bed is catty-corner, then you'd need to paint those 2 walls that come together in the corner behind the bed. HOWEVER, i'd recommend just painting all 4 walls, since that's the case. generally, you don't want to paint half of anything. thirds & fourths are best (odd numbers). for example, a chair rail or wallpaper border shouldn't be placed smack in the middle of a wall - it should be 1/3 of the way up from the floor (30 to 36" up) or maybe 1/4 of the way down, or at ceiling level. and accent walls should be one of 4 walls, not 2 of 4. if you really don't want all 4 walls painted blue from floor to ceiling, another option would be to paint just the top 2/3 or the bottom 1/3 of the wall & use a border or chair rail. usually you want the darker color on bottom, so try painting the blue on bottom & a nice cream on top, separated by a nice wallpaper border. they're easy to hang. ask your daughter in law - she's probably hung many of them! :)

If you're afraid of color, what about adding color subtly? Seek out paint chips/cards that show gradations of the same color, and pick a blue that's only 1 or 2 steps up from the very lightest shade on the card.

I normally LOVE really bold, dramatic colors. I'm not afraid of them at all! But in our family room, we decided to go a completely different route...and we did each wall a different, very pale shade. This is a family space, and the walls are funky (it's a converted basement), lots of angles & pipes that have been enclosed, etc. We went with pale green, pale blue, pale lilac, pale yellow. You can hardly notice that they're even different colors (or even that they aren't just a subtle off-white) until you look closely, or until light hits a wall. It's very pretty, and it works.

Anyway, I'm not suggesting you go this 'dramatic' and do every wall a different color. But I'm using this as an example that very pale, subtle shades of color add just a BIT of a special touch to a room, and aren't overpowering. You might consider this!

You could do two walls with a White Dove (or similar slightly off-white shade that's more interesting than a straight white) and then the two behind your bed in a very pale shade of blue.