Poodle...I have seen this done at the Homearama homes done by top designers in our area and I have to say, it really pulls the house together and gives it a large, spacey flowing look. I notice that the designers usually pick three basic colors and use those in different ways throughout the home. For example, if the walls are all painted a light gold, trim is all off-white, and then different intensities of the gold, burgundy, and aqua are used throughout the home. That way, even though the walls are the same color throughout house, one bedroom might have all the bedding and accents in shades of aqua with accents of burgundy/gold, and another room might be more predominately burgundy with just a little teal/gold. Does this make sense what I'm saying? Anyway, I've always admired the finished look of the home -- it really looks so pulled together! Another common thing I've seen at Homearama is to paint a powder room or laundry room with a paint color different than the rest of the home, but in one of the "theme colors" already used in accenting/textiles throughout the decorating of the home. Anyway, the overall look of these homes is not boring at all to me ... especially since so many other "colors" are always in the home in your woods, metals, etc.

My main floor is a very open plan. You can practically see out the back window of the house from the front door. I am painting it all one color. SW Blonde with BM Ivory White trim. The Blonde color changes through the day depending on the natural light in the room. It is like having different intensities of the color, without going to all the work of choosing. If I had more walls and defined rooms I would probably do more than one color.

ycmom, do you have pics? I am doing my entire home in Blonde (ceilings and walls) with Navajo white trim.

I don't have pictures as I am just starting to paint. I only have large sample patches of Blonde throughout my space. Go to the Homedecorating forum and type in Dixiedo, then go to her member page where she has a link to pictures of her home, painted mostly in SW Blonde. She has a beautiful home and her photos convinced me to go with the color Blonde throughout my main floor and upper floor foyer and hallway.

I love Grassland!

SW Grassland on walls
SW Muslin on ceilings
SW Glass of Milk on trim

in ALL of these rooms:
4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, mud room, laundry, library, multi-purpose room

I used SW Netsuke, SW Ecru, and SW Artifact in other rooms.

I am painting most of our new home SW Macadamia with SW Softer Tan trim and SW Canvas Tan ceilings. In the MBR and DR I am using SW Basket Beige, the next color down from macadamia, because these two room have alot of natural light. If I can figure out how to post pics (I am new to the fourm)I will post them after the work's completed.

angel3090: are you satisfiel with the softer tan trim and canvas tan ceilings, I have never done anything but white white trim and ceilings. What is your decorating style? traditional or contempory etc? I looked at the Macadamia, is that have some green undertones to it?

wonbyherwits: what is your decorating style? Do you have dark wood furniture or lighter? What about your kitchen. I love grassland too, but wanted to do my kitchen in a coordinating color what did you choose?

That home had an open house and everyone loved the house, they seamed to love that all rooms looked alike. It was beautiful. I am concerned about flooring, in that home they had hardwood floors, a med color. I have icky carpent that I plan to remove and am not sure what I am going to put back down. I have an open floor plan, when you walk in you see the DR, Kitchen, and LR. It is a 70's home and has not had any updates since. Except paint and new carpet approx 6 years ago. I do want to paint and update some in the kitchen and bath. I do plan to sell and move to the country in approx. 2 years. Decisions Decisions....

I am picking colors now to paint my new home. I have been looking at models to get ideas. I just recently saw a model home painted a light blues throughout. It was gorgeous and it gave a very calming effect as soon as you walked through the door.

I plan on painting most of the house a tan/beige with the living room a brown and the dining room a red. (All trim will be some shade of white and the ceiling will remain as they are, also some shade of white). Leaving 3 bedrooms unpainted (for now) and painting the bed room a brown and blue (brown under chair rail) and bathroom brown. The powder room downstairs and the guest bath upstairs will be different colors. I have my color scheme in mind, just haven't picked specified colors.

Poodledoodle: Due to the style of my house (English cottage), I have dark walnut floors throughout the main living areas. My wood furniture is all dark wood -- antiques from the US, England and Belgium (mahogany, oak and walnut).

In the main living areas and gallery, I have SW Ecru (a green/gold) on the walls with SW Netsuke on the ceiling. In my garden room (wood floors), I used SW Artifact (a dark olive) with SW Netsuke on the ceiling. The upstairs gallery is SW Netsuke with SW Muslin on the ceiling.

My stair walls are covered with beadboard and painted SW Glass of Milk like all of the trim. That "neutral" area allows me to paint the upstairs and downstairs galleries different wall colors. We don't have a typical foyer -- it is a gallery of French doors downstairs, so we get southern light all across the middle of our house. The upstairs has windows on the south.

The mudroom, laundry and upstairs bathrooms have a slate tile that has rusts, greens and browns and I used SW Grassland on those walls.

The bedrooms, library and multi-purpose room all have Grassland with a deeper sage carpet and cream colored bedding and curtains which match the SW Muslin ceilings.

I have a very unusual kitchen color scheme. My kitchen cabinets are painted a sage green with Imperial Gold granite. The island is black with mahogany butcherblock. My range hood is a cream. The walls are a light celery green. The kitchen color scheme came from an inspiration of a kitchen in Charleston. That kitchen was recently featured again on the cover of "Dream Kitchens" which is a BHG special publication right now.

Hi poodledoodle ~

Well if I will be satisfied is yet to see. We will be having our painting done right around Thanksgiving. I have done some praying that I havenÂt made any mistakes. It has been a difficult process because we are doing it from out of state and I have not even seen the house with sheetrock yet.

Since we have almond colored windows I felt we needed a neutral trim and that any of the "whites" would not be dark enough. Since some rooms donÂt have a lot of natural light I hope the SW macadamia will appear more with yellow undertones than green. Still, if they are on the green side I am okay with that because I love almost every shade of green. I would much rather it go yellow or green than pink.

The SW Canvas Tan is an older color and it is being used in one of my DHÂs projects. It is kind of the same as Kilm Beige but a little lighter and doesnÂt have the pink undertones. The decorator used Canvas Tan for ceilings with Macadamia and Camelback walls. I wanted some sort of color on the ceiling so I went with that since a pro had picked it out already.

She also used SW Whole Wheat semi-gloss for the trim throughout the common areas. Looking at the strip Whole Wheat is dark to me, and I would have never imagined using it for trim. However, to see it, it is absolutely beautiful! What really shocked me was how much lighter it was in a semi-gloss compared to the strip. Still a bit too gold/yellow for our look though, so I went with the lighter Softer Tan and also itÂs on the same strip as the wall color.

I would say our style is probably contemporary, but we do like to throw in some antiques. We are hoping to achieve a neutral look that will suit about any color.

What color should I paint my ceilings if my walls are SW camelback??? I'm building a new home and have really been stressing out this!!! I need help!!!