Christopher Lowell used to do some good stuff on coordinated color blocking in open spaces...you may be able to find something on his web site where he still has some videos posted.

A lot of it has to do with using colors that work together well and putting them on various walls and ceilings so that each space looks unique and yet flows nicely with the next. You might also consider accent walls. Mother had a LR open to her DR so we put a taupe on most of the walls, but then did a terra cotta wall in the LR opposite to a blue wall in the dr ...both had matching window treatments with fabric that had all those colors in it. So the spaces played well together but had their own identity.

I will check out the videos. The problem is the exposed brick wall acts as an accent wall. The main problem or question is what to do with the master bedroom upstairs and the stairway wall. If the stairway wall is different than the bedroom, you will look out onto it. Should that stairway wall be the same as the bedroom?

If the colors go, they need not match.

You can break colors at any inside corner and at outside corners if you have a careful painter.

Here is an example from my exercise room....the walls are Palladian blue, but the buff accent carries over from the ceiling in the music nook which is open and adjoining, and carries into the stairwell. The ceiling color is a lighter shade of the wall color. The color change is used to help visually define the different spaces....yet unify them with a coordinated palette.

So her concern is that if she paints the inside of the loft bedroom a color, say gray, and the stairway a different color, when you are in the bedroom, you will have a gray wall with two "windows" showing the stairway color.

Honestly, I think this could give the loft bedroom some design interest. Just as the brick wall in the living room is an accent wall, the wall with the two "windows" becomes an accent wall in the bedroom.

How does the brick wall tie into all of this? Is it visible from the bedroom?

What I'd do is sort of a modern take on color blocking. Find a color for the living room that goes well with the color of the brick wall. Then find two more colors that coordinate well with the living room color.

One color in the living room, and maybe that same color in the kitchen (a lot depends on how the space is laid out). Then the second color in the hallway and stairs. Then the third color in the bedroom.

Good friends of mine did something like this in their very traditional house, with a center hall, a living room opening off to the right and the dining room opening off to the left, with large archways. The living room was a dark brown, the hall a mustardy gold and dining room a sage green. The colors all worked well together and clearly defined the spaces.

No, the brick wall isn't visible from the bedroom. The below are photos taken by my daughter. Still awaiting my son in law's photos. The room to the left of living room will be baby's room. There is a photo of the staircase but don't have view from bedroom to staircase wall.

Kitchen to be redone..New cabinets, granite and cabinets will wrap around on left side into an island for eating.