Living Room Paint Colors

Choosing the right color for your living room walls is not so difficult once you decide how to use the walls in your home décor. Do you think of the walls as the backdrop to artworks and home furnishings or as a central factor in your color palette?

Today, minimalism is big in home design. Minimalist design is characterized by cool tones and clean lines. In the minimalist living room, the walls need to be a stark color that can help your artwork and furnishings to really stand out. Creamy whites will fudge the lines of modern art and furniture, but clean cold grays, blues, and pure whites will get your furnishings to pop out as they should.

If you're working on beach house décor, however, you will want to use softer colors. White touched with a bit of gray for a chalky aura or creamy neutrals and pastels help airy patterns blend in for a cozier look. For a rustic cottage, shoot for richer earthy colors. Don't be afraid to show some bravado here. Dare to try a deep forest green with a brown the shade of dark Dutch cocoa. As you can see, in cottage décor, the floors, walls, and sometimes a central feature, such as a fireplace, serve to pull the design together. The walls should be colored so as to lend an air of cohesion to mismatched pieces and an informal arrangement of furnishings.

Traditional Look

If you want to go for a traditional living room with lots of heavy wood and neutral upholstery, consider using strong colors like bold green or a brilliant blue. These colors make traditional living room furnishings come alive. In this case, rather than use the walls as a backdrop, you use them as a part of your design scheme to keep furnishings from receding into the background.

Most articles on home design will tell you that using pure white on walls will open up a space and make it appear larger. But there is a school of thought that since white walls reflect more light, they channel a message to the eyes that one has reached the end of the room. Instead of white, try bringing in the view from your window, choosing colors from your garden or the streets. This will lend a visual suggestion that the room extends to the exterior. You may want to try a green that matches the leaves on the trees lining your street. If there are many brick buildings in the vicinity, you may wish to choose a warm red with some white trim.

Wow Factor

If your living room is filled with an array of colorful items and fabrics, choose one color from them for your walls so as to tie things together. On the other hand, if your room is sedate and simple, give the walls a standout color, so that you go from blah to wow with just a couple coats of paint.