Decorating and Design - Need help matching paint

Hello,

Looking for some help in choosing the right wall paint to match what we have already painted. We choose BM Spanish red for our brick fireplace, the insert was black so we also painted the mantel black to match. Now we are trying to find a good wall color. Right now we have choosen either Ashley Grey or Stone House. We are also looking for a darker variation of the Ashley grey, perhaps with a little more brown in it.

Any input or suggestions? I will try to get pictures later.

Thanks!

What other colors are in the room? Upholstery? Area rugs? Art? What other colors are you working with throughout the home? What is your theme?

^^^ yep, what she said ^^^

you don't select wall color based on just the fireplace color.

and your mantel didn't have to be black. it could've been the same as the rest of the woodwork/trim in the room.......which is what??

The room is empty with no trim. There is green carpet which we plan on replacing with something lighter later on. I know this is backwards to paint around the fireplace color but it's just happened that way. We have painted small samples of the Ashley Grey (grey-brown) and the Stone House (yellow-brown) and the Stone seems to go with the red a little better.

What are the colors that you will be using in furnishings and accessories? You want the room to have some 'punch' and everything tie together with contrasting and/or complementing colors. It's like creating a palette of colors that make a statement when you walk into the room. If you have no furnishings or accessories, go shopping first. These will guide you in wall color selection. If you plan on living with the green carpet for some time, then the wall color should work with the carpet color as these are the two largest expanses of color in the room. Does the yellow-brown work well with both the red and the green and your furnishings and accessories and tie everything together successfully?

Please read Annette's Sticky at the top of the Decorating & Design Page at http://forum.doityourself.com/showthread.php?t=275853

Annette's professional tips for choosing paint colors are in line with all that I read written by pros and see carried out by most of the pros on HGTV.

no matter what color you paint the walls now, i fear you will be repainting before you know it. either because the color didn't work with the furnishings you ended up buying, or the new carpet makes the walls look like a different color now that the green carpet is gone.

the green carpet should really go NOW. it will wreak havoc on any decorating you do by casting a greenish hue onto everything. it sounds like you're re-doing this room with new trim & paint & furnishings. why drop the ball on the flooring? if it were beige, that'd be one thing. but green?

Thanks for this message, it really helped me out for I was going to paint the walls in my new home before I bought furniture, now I'll wait.
I have a 33' area which is my livingroom and dinning room combo, the east wall has two patio door's on it, one from the dinning room and the other from the livingroom areas, they both lead out to the Florida room, there is a 6' wall between the patio doors (perfect for a Christmas tree) I have a foyer that is 7' long and 6'wide, all the walls are white right now. I'm not sure, should I paint the foyer the same as the combo rooms, should I have one wall in the combo rooms a drifferent color, painting all the walls the same color would bore me, I want my company to say Wow when they walk in to our home, I want the home to Wow us too.

trensetter:

i'm glad to hear you're going to wait. now wait even longer to decide which walls to paint what! "wow!" doesn't & shouldn't come from the paint on your walls. it should come as a result of your stuff in the room. wall color should be a backdrop for your furnishings, not the focal point. also, have a REASON for painting the walls in the colors you choose. for example, if you decide to have bold colored upholstery and/or draperies in your dining/living room area, then you'll probably have more subdued color on those walls, so then you might want/need bolder color on the foyer walls. that would be a good reason to use those colors there. at this point, it's too soon to say what walls you should paint what.

We've been going about this all wrong, we picked out the color for one wall in the dining room already, Raven's Rage it's in the red family and it's bold, and picked out the new carpet its a American Berber short shag called rustic. But we haven't purchased anything yet, looks like I found you just in time. I'll be doing some rethinking. Thanks