Your inspiration room is gorgeous! I thought about painting my house blue for about a second, but I didn't have the courage since my open floorplan would mean I'd have to paint the family room, dining room, and kitchen. So, now I get to live vicariously through you :)

I think I would take the blue paint to the top of the stairwell on both sides and stop at the corner.

Laurie

Hi Makeithome.

I'm not in love with that blue, but it's not my house, so that doesn't matter. What matters is not the specific color, but how it's handled. The existing scheme, with a different color on the stairway wall, looks really off, like the room was never completed. If the stairs were in a room of their own, having a different color in that area would make sense, but this just looks like the painter didn't come back after lunch.

So yes, paint the stairway's walls--both sides--the same color as your living room. And don't worry about painting the upper hallway the same color. Use whatever makes sense up there, and let the blue begin on the two separate sides of the stairs. Easy.

But here's a caution: the paneling on your inspiration photo looks awkward, and here's why: the dado rail (and the panels below it) is too high. These days, in new houses, building codes mandate higher stair rails than they used to, which messes up traditional proportions. But safety (or "safety") concerns trump aesthetics, so we just have to deal with it & do the best we can. At any rate, dados now need to be higher in stair areas than they used to be, in order to match the rail on the other side & keep the visual balance.

But in your inspiration photo, it's even higher than that, and as a result, the panels look clumsy & amateurish. They're too big, there's not enough height between them & the baseboard and there's too much horizontal space between any two adjacent panels. The overall design of this wall makes me think maybe the layout was done by the carpenter, not the architect, and while a few carpenters are up to that sort of thing, many are not. For someone with a better sense of proprortion, coming up with a better design would have only taken twenty minutes, while others could work on it all day and never figure it out.

Anyway, all the problems stem from the height of the dado itself. The height of the dado on the stair wall (not the perpendicular landing wall) should either have been lowered at the point where the two landing walls meet, or there should have been a step-down from the current height of the landing's dado down to a lower angled molding at the first step, in the same way that the actual stair rail drops down a foot or so at the same point. That would given the stair wall's panels much better proportions.

The good news is that since your stairs have a straight run without a change in direction & you won't be doing any structural work that might triggers the new codes' railing-height, you won't have to deal with that problem. Just make the dado top out at the height of your existing railing. Then add the panels.

BTW, if you're going to add a chair rail to your living room, I'd carry it all the way around the room. That way, it will look like it's always been there, rather than something somebody decided to add, then changed their mind.

I'd do a paint consultation with someone. You are talking cool colors, which can so easily clash with each other instead of blending.

I have painted my home upstairs and down so many times over the course of the 12 years we have lived here. Last Christmas, I did a color consult with Ellen Kennon. I sent her pictures, told her about myself, what I had done, what I was aiming for. I do not like a single color throughout the house either and do love color; my bedroom is brick red painted walls and all earth tones. She called me and we set up a game plan for the main level of my home. I had always painted with cool colors, but we did all warm tones and what a difference! I just finished my last room, our family room which was painted in Cafe au Lait - a wonderful color that looks like a cup of coffee with milk in it. Took me a while because we had wallpaper in our entry and stairwell that we had to remove - I made hubby do the stairwell stuff. I have perfect flow in the house now; golds, greens, browns and everything flows so nicely. The space feels so different! Her paint was awesome to work with, and I have painted with most brands so have a lot to compare with. I have 3 kids, so although I did use flat in some rooms, my preference is her Velvet Sheen, which is now called something else.

You have to pay if you don't order her paints, but the full spectrum paints are incredible; full of life. I don't think I would ever go back to paint mixed with blacks.

Magnaverde... I totally see what you mean after you Photoshopped the picture. After seeing your edit, the original does appear awkward. Thanks for that explanation... now I know what to look for in my proportions when I decide to tackle that project!

Now, as to the color... I realize cool colors are kind of risky, but I am torn... I am so tired of browns, reds and yellows (all the colors of my last apartment)... and I very much dislike green. That's why I was leaning toward blue... and that blue is one of my favorite colors.

Is it possible to have a warm silver blue? and a warm gray?

Oh, Magnaverde, I forgot to mention... I do plan on wrapping the chair rail all the way around the room. I tried to do it in the HGTV program, but it wouldn't allow me to apply it to the stairs. It's glitchy like that.

makeithome - I wouldn't worry about trying to find a warm blue/gray. It's all a matter of preference and if you get stuck on thinking you have to find a warm color, you may get away from your original vision. Just find a color you love and go with it. I spent about 30 minutes looking through centsational girl's blog after you posted her stairs and her house is full of cool colors.

Laurie