Living Room Wall Colors - Setting the "Tone" in Your Space
We could not have made a better choice with our living room wall colors.
Jen loves anything and everything brown and put that together with our focus on combining warmth and comfort with resale value and painting our living room walls in Sherwin Williams Latte was a no brainer.
Not everybody loves earth tones, though. Fact of the matter is, there are so many great living room wall colors available that there is really no need to settle for something conservative. Stylish means many things to many people and our goal is to show you just how possibilities are out there.
In fact, we found a great new site that can help you pick that perfect color for your living room...My Perfect Color.com.
What's Your Design?
Design styles can dictate your living room wall colors to a degree. Most folks automatically thinks blues, greens and yellows when a nautical design style is mentioned. Modern conjures up thoughts of black and white, while mission style brings reds and browns to mind.
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There is some conventional wisdom to this...but remember IT'S YOUR ROOM! If you like the end result and your guests rave, is it that important that you followed the rules of interior decorating to a tee?
To give you a baseline here are some design styles and the living room wall colors that tend to represent them most often. Again, it's up to you to make your living room work for you. Using colors you like is most important.
Casual - Earth tones (shades of brown, orange, gold, softer reds, olive and other muted greens)
Contemporary / Modern - Black, white, gray / silver, and bright solid colors (red, blue, green)
Country - light blue, shades of yellow, warm reds, orange, green
Rustic / Lodge - hunter green, darker shades of red, brown, yellow, orange
Traditional / Victorian - muted and lighter colors like light green, light blue, restrained gold, softer reds
Nautical - light to royal blue, green, yellow, tan, off-white
As you can see, these room don't necessarily fit the norm, but they certainly all make a unique statement. Armed with the basics, here are some other things you may want to consider when deciding on living room wall colors.
Big or Small?
Not only does this mean, "Do you have a big or small room?" This also means, "Are you trying to make the room look bigger or smaller?"
Your living room wall colors can make your room appear bigger or smaller so deciding if this type of "visual trick" can be of use to you is very important before you get started.
If you're looking to make the room feel smaller or "cozier", use warmer or darker colors to accomplish this. For example, browns, dark reds, and bold blues bring the walls closer. Use this when you're trying to get control over a large living room or if furnishings are a bit sparse.
In contrast, if you're goal is to make your small space look bigger; lighter or cooler colors are the way to go. Lighter blues, yellows, tans, pinks, or greens will move the walls further away. This is a great idea for a small living room, or a living room where you're trying to place emphasis on the furnishings by making the wall color blend into its surroundings.
To Search or Not to Search
The question is...how easily do you want to search for all our Stylish Living Room Ideas? The answer is...this easily! Use our Stylish Search to go wherever you'd like on our site.
In or Out?
What exactly do you do in your living room? This isn't as obvious a question as it might sound. In many living rooms, a variety of stimulating activities take place; like watching movies or sporting events, playing games, talking, or entertaining. These are definitely social, outward activities.
However, in some living rooms, a lot of relaxation is taking place. Sometimes the living room is primarily for sitting, reading, working, or just showing off. This level of activity is more calm and focused inward.
In active, social living rooms, warm colors tend to work best because they support the level of activity. Yellows, browns, reds, and oranges are warm colors.
In more inwardly focused living rooms, cool colors are the way to go. Blues, grays, whites, and mint green would be good examples. These colors tend to calm us and validate the more serene activities that take place in these living rooms.
Care to use more than one living room wall color on an entire wall? No problem...
Accent Walls
Photo by Nancy Hugo. Provided via Creative Commons License.
There are many good reasons why you would paint one of your living room walls a different color than the rest. For example, if there are issues with the amount of natural light entering a room, you may choose to paint a wall a bit lighter, in the area where the light is worst.
What if your room is perfect square, or just lacks features? That could get a little boring. Liven it up by painting one wall in an accent color, either vivid or just a few shades lighter, depending on your own personal style.
Have an interesting architectural element or a particular piece of furniture that you want to set off? That's another great reason to paint an accent wall.
Here's another one for you. Maybe you just want an accent wall! That's fine too. Because IT'S YOUR ROOM! Your living room wall colors are your unique statement about the room.
More Useful Ideas
These ideas for your living room wall colors may sound a little random, but nonetheless, they're important.
- Take into consideration how much natural light comes into your living room. If lots of light comes in, you can "cool" your colors quite easily. Just the opposite, if there is little natural light, the emphasis should be on "warming" the room up.
- Look to the past for your future. Study the colors associated with different time periods to help you choose the right living room wall colors for your design style. Example: If you're going mission-style, study the colors most associated with the Arts & Crafts period.
- Pictures, pictures, pictures...Find pictures of living rooms and think about what you like and don't like. Magazines like In Style, House Beautiful, Martha Stewart Living and "O" At Home and great sources for photos. Also check out stock photo sites, like iStockPhoto.com
- Don't go against the already distinctive features of a room. Especially if these features are permanent, or semi-permanent like molding or cabinetry.
- Do not be afraid to customize. Don't limit yourself to the color swatches you see at every paint store or home improvement warehouse. Often, you'll find the need to make a color a couple shades darker or lighter or even glossier to work with different architectural features or to handle the natural lighting of a room.
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Want More Color Theory? Buy The Book
We can only tell you so much about living room wall colors in this one page. That's why we enlisted the services of a PROFESSIONAL INTERIOR DESIGNER to help us create The Stylish Living Room, the only interior design book you'll need to create the living room of your dreams! We go into much more detail about colors and how to use them in your living room.
- We introduce the Color Wheel
- We review the Psychology of Color
- We talk about how you can integrate the colors you love into any living room design style
Not only do we talk about color, but we cover everything you'll need to know to create the living room of your dreams, stem to stern, top to bottom, soup to nuts. Learn more about The Stylish Living Room...here.
Color Crazy!
Now it's time to really have some fun. You're armed with great information on how to choose living room wall colors..so just do it!
Remember, use a few simple rules, a lot of individuality, and if you don't like how it looks you can always cover it up and start over again. That's the great thing about paint, it's relatively inexpensive and everybody can do it.
Good Luck choosing your living room wall colors, hope it's as much a labor of love for you as it was for us!
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