I have the same problem with my north facing living room, and am planning on solving some of this with good lighting. I do have a warmer gray on the walls (a little lavender mixed in, but don't tell my DH). Also am going with light colored upholstered furniture... although to some degree I think you may have to embrace the darker look.

We also moved recently to a home with similar architecture--lots of ceiling surface area and nonfussy lines.

I suggest painting the walls a warm caramel color. It will need to harmonize with the colors of your flooring and hearth brick.

Suggest uploading the room photo to SW or BM website and "paint" it. Try BM Geenfield pumpkin for a yummy caramel shade that I used in our previous home in the dining room.

You will need nice lighting around the edges of the room for it to feel enveloping and inviting.

I would try to add in some furniture with glass or reflective metals on them also.

Have you considered adding skylights or solar tubes or even more windows? I've added and enlarged windows in my formerly dark home, and they are worth every penny. More light and expanded views are better than futzing with the room color.

I would also suggest trying to boost the amount of light first. I've got a living room with dark wood floors and little natural light. So far we've got 4 lamps, each with 2 or 4 light bulbs apiece, for a 14' x 19' space. Still not quite enough light though, so we're having an electrician add a ceiling fixture

I have BM Windham Cream in a northfacing room. I also would get a rug with lighter colors.

My mom just got a really pretty soft, peachy gold for her north facing room. Maybe that would be an idea?

My dark room was my breakfast/dining room. I tried so many things over the years to lighten up that room. At one point, I tried Hawthorn Yellow, but I felt HY was just too saturated to lighten a room, and it felt oppressive to me. I think there is something strange about that color too. After living with Hawthorn Yellow for a long time, I finally changed it to the lighter BM Windham Cream on the same strip with HW. I also added more lighting around the perimeter of the room to make the light yellow of the Windham Cream glow. I eliminated all window treatments on my one north faciing window. Then I installed light wood floors, in my case natural hickory. I also painted all my woodwork white. Now that room is one of my favorite rooms in the house.

Solar tubes might not work with a ceiling like that. You need the tube to be a certain length for the light enhancement.

If you are looking for more natural light, would skylights be possible on the south side?

I think picking warm, but light toned colors will help you feel better about this room, like Theresa2 did. Look at the LRV value on the back of the color chip. The higher the value, the more light it will bounce around. Also, several lamps at varying heights.

Would it be possible to decorate this room for night and bad-weather use, i.e., in a way that would look wonderful in artificial light? You would need another, sunny room, of course for those hours and might want to change the label on it, as on the family room.

Before HVAC, and electricity for that matter, people moved from one side of the house to another to follow the sun, or get away from it. It still makes excellent sense if the configuration allows. Our living room, designed to be a sun room, is open on the east, south, and west to the sun, and when it heats up too much on hot summer afternoons (sheltering trees still growing), we head for our sitting room off the kitchen on the other side of the house, which is significantly cooler, often enough to leave the AC off.

Ignoring the whole north-facing, dark room issue for a moment. How do you want your family room to look? Whatever you end up with, it has to be something that you like, not just what designers say you should do. All the color advice in the world is useless if you don't like the colors, shades or tones recommended.

So my gut feeling is that if you mostly like creamy walls with white trim, then that's what you should do in this family room, instead of trying to embrace darker colors. Creamy, warm, white walls will certainly brighten this space, while darker walls may make you feel it is too dark.

Short-term, a lighter colored area rug or two will brighten up the floor and make the room seems brighter and airier.

Long-term, I'd invest in more lighting. Two chandeliers, if the room size is large enough. Wall scones, definitely. And a few floor and table lamps for task lighting.

You've got dark floors. Stick to light colors on the walls and mid-tones for the furniture.

I moved in to a house with one room painted a dark, navy blue. It wasn't cozy, it didn't warm up the room. The color just made the room dark. And no matter how many lamps I added to the room, the wall color just seemed to soak up all the light. It was either paint, or saw the room off the house. So my advice is that if you like light-colored walls, putting up a darker color in an already dark room will not work for you.

I think the Hawthorne Yellow would work nicely to lighten and brighten this room, or if you wanted lighter, Western Flax. My north facing LR was this color for years, and we always felt it was warm and comfortable, ItâÂÂs a tad lighter and creamier now, but I miss the hint of yellow from before.

I really like the idea of Hawthorn Yellow or something in a mid tone. The Hawthorn would be warm and cheery. Even thought you like light colors on walls, if the room is really dark, it very well could end up looking dingy.

A word of caution about Hawthorne Yellow: it's very yellow. It doesn't seem that way on the strip, but we painted our basement bath HY for the same reasons as you, and were surprised. We have dark wood and a lot of white so it works, but I don't think I would be comfortable with the color if it were in a room I used a lot. This picture is a pretty true representation.

A friend painted all the public rooms in her house BM Chestertown Buff and it is such a pretty shade of yellow. Depending on the room and the time of day, it's a completely different look. She doesn't have a lot of natural light either (large trees around her house) and has a lot of dark furniture and white trim. It's gorgeous.

I put BM hazelnut cream in my interior guest bath and it's a lovely bright shade of beige without going yellow.

Second, I would really encourage you to get more artificial light in the room...either cans or maybe cable lighting. Also it looks like some lamps would be helpful. It's best when light comes from multiple heights in the room.

I say add a good number of lamps for starters. Just one overhead light will almost make any room feel gloomy. After you see the lighting provided by the lamps then try samples of various paints. I think a cream or a light beige would look nice.