I have my low-light living room done in BM Lenox Tan with BM White Dove on the trim, FP and doors, and I LOVE it. It is a wonderful low-light color.

I'd also replace the gray drapes with white tab curtains and hang them as panels, not pulled back as you have them. That will give it a more updated look.

My LR in Lenox Tan - and there is absolutely NO green undertone

I like your paint color! I would paint the trim white, get rid of the dark curtains and furnishings( except the desk), and see if that offers enough improvement to help you like your room!

Rather than go lighter which will only make the desk stand out more, I'd go with a richer deeper jewel tone with real color. I wouldn't go this bright, but it's one example I found of how a deeper color can brighten the room and pop the desk. Take a look at Ben Moore Affinity colors, like schooner, lucerne, or dragonfly.

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Then add more Edison light to the room to add the brightness. The light from the fan is going to be harsh given its direction coming from above, and the little lamp is not sufficient to light the space. Add some wall sconces, a torchiere, a picture light over the picture.

I'd change the drapes to something that hung open and just skimmed the edge of the window rather than close in at the top. Most of the light from a window comes from the top. If that window is right up against the wall, then look into getting a roman or woven wood blind that could be hung up by the ceiling and hang just to skim the top of the window.

I can't quite make out what that other piece of furniture is in there...and it seems to be blocking a lot of the window. If that piece can go, then I'd look at putting a nice chair with a reading lamp and a small table in the corner by the window. It will let more light in and add coziness. Then hang a mirror on the wall by the window facing the desk and it will multiply the light in the room.

While that desk chair may be comfortable, it really doesn't go with the style of the desk. Are you able to pull it into the desk? Or do the feet get in the way? Are you able to center the desk on that wall?

oops, missed that you wanted to stay with tan.

If you like blue, I'd look into the usual suspects, i.e. BM Yarmouth Blue (I have that in a west facing room), Wedgewood Gray (not gray at all),

Yarmouth

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Palladim Blue (although towards greenish)

Others are BM Buxton Blue or SW Seasalt.

And I'd get white drapes that extend beyond the window.

I don't have any paint colors to suggest, but want to agree with previous posts on improving the lighting and changing the curtains. A torchiere lamp, even a cheap one, would shoot the light up to the ceiling and bounce it around the room. White or cream or light colored curtains that are open at the top would let the light in. Maybe even skip the curtains and a Silhouette shade - the generic name is sheer shade. Look at the ones made by Comfortex.

I like the paint color with the cherry desk, the green undertone works well with the cherry. What I dont like is the carpet color and the drapery color with the wall color.

I don't think the paint color is that sad, but the window is. Look how little light it is letting in. I agree that simple white panels that let all the light in will make a huge difference. I actually like green undertones with warm wood.

Yes, the window needs attention for sure, but to me there is no contrast, see how the wall color just blends in with the carpet? Though I love the blue colors suggested, they may be too calming. I would probably go with something like with a soft straw color, BM Oat Straw for example as shown below. Then you could add cream panels to the window, or introduce a print the has the straw color in them as well, I would also opt for cream colored baseboards and trim.

I know you want to stay with tan, but I think a blue (love the Yarmouth!) would look lovely with your cherry desk.

Here is the straw color with a bright rug for good measure:

Tan walls, tan carpet, brown furniture ... way too much of the same color family.

I like the post above the one with the orange rug ... a pale clear blue would enhance the cherry desk instead of muting it.

Now, I'm a huge fan of blue (I have Yarmouth Blue), but I also have several yellow rooms. In fact, my current office (west-facing, above the Yarmouth B room) is yellow with a light blue/turquoise ceiling. I really like either one of MagdalenaLees versions.

I just had our office painted a medium green (SW Artichoke) and it really works with the low light. Lighter colors in my room just looked blah.

Love that Artichoke in 2pups4me's office (and I generally don't care for green walls). And agree that low-light rooms need bolder color, not light nor dark, but somewhere in the LRV range of 25 - 55.

I love the mockups that MagdalenaLee did. I think It really helps to visualize whether you would a like calm blue or a warm tan (almost a cheery yellow on my monitor). Both are nice, but after seeing the mockups which feels right for you? lukkiirish - great job selecting the inspiration pic and drapes.

On my monitor, I think your current color looks good in your room and with your carpet. Your carpet looks like it has a pinky beige tone. If you want to go neutral, I'd make sure whatever you pick has a red/pink undertone. Look at BM Stone House. I wouldn't do anything with yellow or orange. (That or go so dark with the wall color that it makes the undertone issue go away.)

I like the idea of lighter curtains and an area rug. I like the idea of adding blue, either in the rug and curtains, or even the ceiling color if you wanted to change that. I like Magdalenas's first photo. The second one the paint clashes with the carpet.

I love the mock up with the blue walls and new curtains. I think darker rooms benefit from a bit of color. Lighter colors and beiges show to many shadows and make the room even drearier sometimes.

love the mock ups too! both colors give the room life!

This is a bit long but I wanted to address everyone who commented. I really do appreciate the help. I hope to start painting soon and I'll post updates when I do.

Tibbrix, I love your
style. Your rooms are very pretty. That
chair makes me want to curl up next to the fireplace with a good book. And for Lenox Tan, love that, too! We have it
in our kitchen. I’ll have to see if I
have any leftover and give it a try. And thanks for mentioning the White Dove
trim.

Grapefruit, When I painted a swatch on the wall, I liked it,
too. Then I put it up on all 4 walls,
whoa, different story. I removed a lot
of the furniture and the dark drapes – what a difference!

(sorry for the poor pic but I wanted to show I really did remove those terrible drapes! and the brown chair is only a placeholder)

Annie, I hadn’t thought of a jewel tone so I looked into the
colors you suggested. Fell in love with
BM Schooner LRV 20 . Tried all Sunday to talk my
family into it but, in the end, they won and voted No. I’m still pretty smitten with it, though, and
may try to use it as an accent color.

Yes, the lighting is pretty hideous. The ceiling fan is from the previous
homeowner and I never bothered to mess with it. I didn’t realize how bad it was
until I looked at it in the photo. When I
get to that point I’ll have to post for some advice on chandelier choices. I love the Edison look but it scares me a little. Too trendy maybe.

There was an overwhelming response to those drapes! They are gone and I am really surprised at the difference it made. I think you’re right
about the window being very close to the wall. Do you think I have enough space to put up drapes?

As a temporary placeholder, I dragged a chair up from the basement
and put it in the corner. It works! Great suggestion. Now I just have to find one that isn’t brown.

Oh, that office desk chair is so comfortable! But, yes, not quite right for the space. For testing, I grabbed smaller chair and see
that it does need to be changed out. Bummer.

What wall should the mirror go on?

Nosoccermom, I only mentioned tan because that seemed the “safe”
color for a dark space. Annie’s
suggestions really made me re-think my position on that.

Blue is a popular suggestion here (almost as popular as
getting rid of the drapes) I've inserted a photo of my MBR, which is the next room
over. I think the blues are so similar it
would be too much. Love the pics you posted.

If I can fit drapes in, I think I would like to take them to
the floor. I’ll have to experiment as
several others have mentioned a using shorter length.

Oh, and now I have to track down the photo of your room with
a turquoise ceiling. You really know how
to use color!

(my blue MBR)

Graywings, You’re the
2nd to suggest a torchiere.
Would a standard floor lamp work or is the direction of light the
torchiere gives off the reason it’s being suggested?

And do you have experience with Comfortex? I hope I can put up some fun drapes to add
some color but I’m so close to the wall I don’t think it’s possible. I searched for a dealer near me but there was
only 1 and I didn’t recognize the store.

RoseAbbey, I agree with every bit of your comment! On a side note, I love the pic of the artwork
you have on our stair landing. I’m
drawing this from memory but it is you that has the Spanish girl artwork,
right?

Linelle, The paint color is deceiving in the
photos. It’s pretty drab. Like military khaki’s. Yes, those drapes are
gone now. It was so obvious to everyone
else they were a problem but I couldn’t see it.
Geez, my decorating confidence meter plummeted when I realized this.

lukkiirish, Funny that you mention the blending of all the
colors. When I took the updated photo of
the office tonight it really stood out how blahh it all was. I grabbed a swatch of BM Oat Straw and like
it. I am a little concerned it’s still a
bit too muted but I don’t want to go too yellow. It does look really nice in
the photos you posted, though. And the last photo, where did you pull it
from? The curtains look like they might
have the BM Schooner blue I am going to try to use as an accent. If I can hang
curtains, those may be worth hunting down.

---Magdelena--- You’re amazing! Thank you so much for photo-shopping my
room. My husband about fell over when he
saw it. The budget just got a little
larger because we both think a rug is a must now.

Lazy gardens, I never realized how much tan or brown was in
my house until I posted the picture of my office! Now I know why my
husband keeps saying “pick some color already”.
Did you ever read Pal’s post on color vs. content? I thought I was in the “content” group but
now I see I’m not in either group.

2pups4me, your room turned out
great. I have trouble with picking green
paints so I tend to stay away from them but that color looks really, really
nice. Hmm, SW Artichoke. Green wasn’t on
my radar until just now. Thanks!

decordummy, Yeah, Magdelena rocks. I liked all of Lukki’s pictures and then
Magdelana brought them to another level

Misformik (love your beachy profile pic) I had to look at
the photos again after your comment. I
agree that the blue looks better with the wood.
I do love the Oat Straw photo but maybe because of the rug element. I
may have to rethink it all now. Oh, the carpet is straight, boring tan – I’m
just using an old camera with very poor lighting

Hi Roarah, I have dreary room now and am really trying not to
make the same mistake again. Paint color
is so hard to pick. My mother used a
light tan called Cream Fleece in her house and it looks amazing. Same paint in mine – boring. Thank goodness for GW.

Like what you've done so far and glad you like the schooner blue color. It's very pretty.

Just to clarify, nothing trendy about edison light...it's been around for well over a century. I just mean electric lighting...lamps and things...what we rely on when we don't have natural daylight. I didn't mean specifically the bare bulb factory filament lighting that is trendy now.

I like the colors used by Magdalena in her mock up. Thought it was interesting in that they seem to be pulled from the globe on your desk. I like the print on the window treatment, but given how close the window is to the wall, I'd do an over mount relaxed roman shade instead of panels. (Panels will necessarily block the window as there's no place else for them to hang.) You could mount it higher so when drawn up it just skims the window top to maximize the amount of light you get.

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The mirror should go on the wall opposite the desk, hung by the chair where you might otherwise hang a picture. The reason being, it will capture the light from the window and help reflect it onto the opposite wall. I'm showing this pic not for mirror ideas, but only how a mirror that is perpendicular to a window captures and reflects the light across the room.

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Honestly, the only reason I brought up the Lenox Tan is because you said you wanted to stay with a tan and that the room has very low light, but I think it would be very blah in there, esp. with that rug. If it were me, I'd go more for something along the lines of that SW Artichoke or something like BM Lucerne.

A floor lamp would help, and if you have one in the house, you could try it. But for me, the torchiere that sends the light to the ceiling is the way to go. I replace the standard bulb with a 65 watt interior flood light.

I had the Comfortex brand in a previous house and they were great. At the time, there were no other options besides the Hunter Douglas Silhouettes. Comfortex is a subsidiary of Hunter Douglas, and I have since purchased other window treatments by them (roller shades). I like the brand.

Wow, amazing what a difference just by removing the drapes. I'd go with either a relaxed blind or just the a bamboo blind.
If the ceiling fan bugs you but you like to have a fan/light fixture, check out this quick DIY solution.

Detailed directions

Agree that torchiere lamps create great lighting in rooms with low natural light. Just do not put it anywhere near your drapes.

Love that Oat Straw color from Benjamin Moore. Will definitely make the room brighter.

Pale colors in dark rooms do not make a room brighter. they make a room drearier, in fact, because there is no light for them to reflect. But you also don't want dark colors that will absorb any light that is in there either. Low-light rooms are best, IMO, with mid-range LRV colors, that neither reflect a lot of light nor absorb a lot. Then have good artificial lighting in there.

Glad you like the suggestion(s). I have a similar color in my livingroom, Behr's War Muffin but it's a stronger gold and I ended up repainting two of our walls cream to help tone it down a bit. Now I love it but when I chose it, I new nothing about painting or color. I think having a more muted tone would have been my preference if I had known then what I do now.

Lighting has so much to do with it too, if you paint a sample on your wall, the Oat may not be as muted as it seems on the card. This isn't our room, but it is a good representation of the Warm Muffin color.

As for the drapes, I got the 2nd photo off of google images, the first one is from Pottery Barn. I love the idea of a printed drape. If you're leaning in that direction (or even a printed rug) I would first find the drapes or rug you want and then pull your wall color from them.

I'm really looking forward to seeing what you end up choosing and how your project looks when it's done!

I looked up BM Schooner. Very pretty! Similar colors:
New York State of Mind
Van Duesen
Mozart Blue
I personally love Lucerne (but it depends a lot on lighting --- I love it in a dark room)

Would you consider putting grasscloth on the wall? Look at the photo of the mirror that Annie posted above - that's grasscloth behind it. It can be expensive, though.