SW Languid Blue. I've got it on my bedroom walls, and it is beautiful at night (i.e.: dark room) in lamplight.

White paint with colorful furnishings.

http://www.wikihow.com/Choose-Paint-Colors-for-Your-Basement

Tibbix, your Languid Blue is beautiful! We will definitely consider this color and I'm going to file it away for future reference, too, as I love blue, and it's a bit different from all the other blues that are popular these days. Thanks for the choosing article, too. KSWL, we originally thought white, but in looking around online, I started to doubt if it would look good. Will revisit it. Thank you.

White is not a good idea for dark rooms for the same reason your beige looks blah. As the article says, light colors need light to reflect in order to make them work in a room. That is actually the reason beiges and whites don't look good in dark rooms and instead look dreary and dirty and blah: because there is no light for them to reflect back into the room.

Dark colors absorb any available light, which is why dark colors aren't a good idea and will make a room like that look like a cave.

I think you want a room with a color with some depth..but not dark. I'd look at colors with an LRV range of 30 - 55 or so.

Personally I love blue bedrooms. there is something about waking up in a blue bedroom that works for me. And like I said, I changed my room from BM Quiet Moments to the SW Languid Blue (although I wish I'd gone with BM Van Courtland Blue), and the Languid Blue is stunning at night because it is so saturated with color.

Btw, that is not my room in the pic above. Got that off the Web just to show you the Languid Blue.

Tibbrix, I guess that is why we had taken white off the table. I read some articles about using white in low light areas that didn't make it sound very appealing. I will say we have white board and batten 3/4 up the wall in the adjoining TV room and it looks pretty good, but we also have two windows in that space, and a sun porch attached to it, so it gets a little more light than the bedroom.

Interesting about the LRV. I have the Sherwin Williams fan deck and was looking at Languid Blue, which has an LRV of 46. My husband suggested we look at Sleepy Blue, which has an LRV of 59. I don't know much about LRV, just what I've read here over the years, and it seems to him like the lighter color might be better in the darker room. I'm trying to convince him that lighter is not always better when it comes to small rooms or dark spaces.

Right. The Languid will be better in that room, I think. Again, the lighter blue needs more light to reflect to "make it work", so to speak. The Languid blue doesn't, which is why it works well in a room with mostly artificial light.

The one warning I'd make, though, is that there are so many difference blues - purple blues, yellow blues, white blues….so you want to check any blue paint color - if you pick blue - with the blue shams to see that they go reasonably well together.

This is a very pretty blue, SW Adrift, LRV 37

Vs Languid Blue

Adrift is not in my fan deck, but in comparing the two colors online, I think I like Languid better. Good point about the shams coordinating. Will get a sample and check it out. Thanks again.

It looks very different on the wall, of course depending on the light. Much more saturated at night, and even during the day, and it doesn't have any of the periwinkle/purple you see above.

That is Adrift? Or Languid Blue?

That is my bedroom, in Languid Blue. See what I mean? You couldn't tell! Lol.

Oh wow, that is completely different. Very pretty bedroom. I like its simplicity very much.

Thanks. I rent my house out, so I have to keep it simple. I will tell you, I love the Languid Blue at night.

I'm going to remove the pic now for reasons I won't bore you with.

Thanks, Lori for the additional info about white. I will check out those chip suggestions. The info I read about white not being a good color for low light rooms was in various places, but not bloggers, whose opinions I rarely trust, since a lot of them are not color experts. In fact, most bloggers these days tout whites and neutrals, however, I am not sure that's always been the case. I rarely look at blogs anymore, because they all seem to have the same look and are mostly doing the same thing with color, it has gotten boring in my opinion, but I digress. I do love a good, crisp white. I appreciate you chiming in!

Since you are selling the house and want it to look fresh, you might look at the current Pottery Barn colors and find one that fits the room:

http://www.potterybarn.com/design-studio/landing/paint-landing/?cm_src=productsearch

My suggestion is to add an inexpensive torchiere floor lamp in the corner that will shoot the light up to the ceiling and have it bounce around. Look for a torchiere that has a single socket pointing up (most of them are like that), then put in a 40 watt flood light. It will cast a nice light in the room.

White can be so office/institutional looking, esp. in a room with no natural light, IMO. I think the better use of white in such rooms is in textiles, like bedding or upholstery, with a good saturated color on the walls, esp. in you have no recessed lighting in the room.

When I bought my house, I painted my LR, which has very little natural light, BM White Sand so a very light color, although not the crisp type of white Lori is talking about. It was better than what had been there before, BM Antique White with a drab olive green on the woodwork, which I changed to BM White Dove, but it wasn't quite right. I repainted it last fall to Lenox Tan, a much more saturated, warm color and WOW! What a difference! It is SO gorgeous and warm and it radiates..ie: is "alive", and it makes you just want to curl up in there at night by a fire and never leave. It made all the difference in the world.

However, if you're looking for a more contemporary look, the crisp whites Lor is referring to might be the way to go.

The torchiere light suggestion is a good one, I think. They cast very nice light. Keep it away from curtains, though.

Does your real estate agent have a suggestion? I think if you are painting anyway for the express purpose of resale, neutral is your best bet.

How about a sunny yellow? We painted a dark, north facing bedroom yellow and it is very cheery now. Yellow would also pair nicely with your blue bedding.

I would try sea salt by sw. I am not sure how it would read in your basement but I like to think of it as a neutral. If it is too green in your basement, try a bit bluer.

I would go with a darker color and white bedding and large art work. I have BM Lucerne in a basement bedroom it's a tealish blue)

BM Lucerne

Try BM pale moon...it's a wonderful shade of yellow and always looks like a sunny day, with or without the sun.

I love nosoccermom's pic second from the last! Looks lovely!! Bright but muted and warm at the same time!