Decorating and Design - Coordinating trim/wall colors

Hi,

After a few years of escalating trim and flooring improvements I'm almost ready to paint my largest room. It's a fairly large room given the modest size of the house with 19' ceilings. We plan to decorate it in a somewhat historical french style - one book I have calls this muted colors, Kevin McClouds book calls it a powder blue palette although our primary color will be the rusty orange. It seems that a rusty orange goes well with reds, blues and violets as long as they are a similar tonal value. We have tenatively chosen the rusty orange for the wall color (other rooms in the house are orange, coral and lavender/pink).

The problem is that of the few pictures I have showing room settings that have the rusty orange walls, they virtually always have dark, stained trim. We have upgraded the pathetic trim with 8" crown, 6" base, 3.5" casing etc but it will be painted. It will still have to be white but it can be an off white. In other rooms we have used Ben Moore atrium white for the trim which is a very bright white. I have seen pictures of modern homes with dark brown walls and bright white trim and it's a little hard on the eyes IMO. Of course our wall color will not be that dark.

Perhaps I should just stick with the atrium white, and shift the furniture/decorations(which have not been selected yet) to a somewhat brighter palette than the drab furniture shown in the books. There are some aspects of the house which will remain modern no matter what so it's probably a mistake to go too far with the historical likeness. On the other hand a slight shift in trim color (one that you would only notice if you held it next to the atrium white) might be warranted.

Is there any rule of thumb on this - I have seen decorators simply hold the off-white chips next to the wall color chip to find a good fit.

BTW, if you plan on doing some recurring paint selection and/or decorating, Kevin McClouds book is not bad. It's basd on historically proven color combos and he even gives the paint codes.

Thanks

Most tend to recommend the same trim color throughout for continuity. A subtle shift from 'bright' white would likely not be noticeable.

Just for clarification I would add that the only trim paint that has been done is the upstairs and I give priority to the downstairs since it is where the most work has been done. In other words if there is a noticeable improvement in going with a slightly different trim color it's a no brainer. I could re-paint the upstairs trim color later and as it turns out the upstairs wall colors are from a similar palette as the orange color so it probably would be harmonious.

Also, painting the downstairs is a huge effort so I need to nail it the first time and I don't have a good track record on this. The first room I painted was the half bath and I painted it so many times I could feel the room getting smaller...The salesman at the Benjamin Moore store gives me a contractor discount and they have a coffee cup with my name on it there...

The muted tones sound French Provincial. You might find the following article interesting: http://www.doityourself.com/stry/frenchtouch

You will likely prefer to go with an off white with the muted tones.

Bright whites tend to go best with modern and contemporary styles, while off whites are best with historical, traditional, cottage and the like styles. Off whites will either have a yellow base for warm or a blue base for cool. IMO, for what you're wanting, I'd use an offwhite with a yellow base to warm up the blue, but this is my preference and you might prefer cool tones.

While there are many French painters whose color inspiration came from the French countryside in the provinces, Renoir is an outstanding example of the use of colors that we tend to associate with the French Provencial scheme. Today, this color scheme is more lovingly often referred to as French Country. Colors are more weathered and muted to reflect the rural countryside.

You can find many of Renoir's paintings in online pictures. The following example of Renoir's Study of Flowers is a wonderful palette at http://www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/opac/search/cataloguedetail.html?&priref=2924&_function_=xslt&_limit_=50#1