I tied my rooms together by taking one wall color and putting it on the ceiling in another room. This way the rooms coordinate but don't match. If you look at BM color preview you'll see that the shades up and down the strip coordinate well and if you look at a color the same number of steps down the strip they also will coordinate nicely. (Not true for other color strips.) Or you can take a look at BM affinity colors which all play nicely together. You can look for an inspiration piece that has the colors you want in it and use that to tie the rooms together but emphasizing one color more in one room and less in the other.

How about one of the bluey--greeny--gray colors? Similar to your greige idea but on the blue side?

Both of these sound like great ideas! It definitely gives me a starting point, thank you. This whole situation was expedited by my 6 yo placing indelible hand-prints all along one wall of the entry -- not dark enough to look deliberate, just dirty ;-) It made me realize the whole space needs an update since it was first painted 11-ish years ago!

Edit -- Annie, we have standard 8' ceilings; does it look unusual to paint 8' ceilings other-than-white colors?

Which rooms are currently blue, green, caramel and what are the current colors of your LR, DR and hallway? Can't you just continue the same blue, green, caramel color scheme?

Our living room/entry are "Navajo white" -- sort of a light yellowish beige. It tends to look dingy because the rooms do not have a lot of natural light (facing north and east). The kitchen/dining is sage green and I love it in there because they have more sunshine. Hallway to bathrooms/bedrooms is off-white. First bedroom is apple green with navy blue beds (my boys shared room, faces north), second bedroom is sky blue (we use it as a play room, tons of western sun in there), main bath is medium sky blue and has a solatube -- I let the boys pick the color for that bathroom because it's essentially the one they use (the vanity, mirror and floor are basically black and the walls/shower have white tile), master bedroom is white but there are two sets of curtains are caramel velvet -- I love the curtains -- master bath is mid-tone gray with southern exposure.

I could continue the color scheme, just not sure how. Blue will probably feel too cold for the living room because it's so dark in there, and green doesn't look good either for similar reasons. Caramel colors seem to become muddy. Basically I've not found anything that looks good in there so went with neutral/light "safe" Navajo White (which also doesn't really look that good).

I just painted a condo SW Agreeable Gray and am now touting this color everywhere. It's a warm gray that depending on the light reads, gray, slightly beige, greenish. I think it would go well with blue, green, gold.

Also, note how blue, green, and gold are used in the rooms below in art and accessories (like Sueb suggests.)

Our first floor has 5 rooms, not including the powder room and foyer. Living room is a muted gold, kitchen/family room is a dark mossy green, dining room is blue-gray, foyer is a sand color (neutral), sunroom (not visible really from the other rooms) is a light green. None of rooms has the same wall color and the only neutral is in the foyer/hall. The way I make all the rooms "connect" is to use the same colors throughout the entire first floor. So for example, the living room walls are gold, and the background of the rug in the adjacent room is also gold, and there is gold in the artwork, there is gold in the kitchen backsplash tile, etc. I have some red in every room -- a chair in the living room, a loveseat in the family room, pillows, and so on. And though blue is my least used color, it does appear in small doses so the dining room's color is reflected elsewhere too -- there is a blue chair in the family room, bits of blue in the living room rug.

Another little trick is to get the paint chips for all the wall colors you have (or are planning to have), cut the individual colors out (so you don't have the other colors on the "strip" competing for your attention) and lay them out next to each other on a neutral surface. Do they look good together, or is one a bit jarring or clashing? Sometimes that is the quickest way to tweak one or two colors in your palette. You might see, for example, that your sky blue needs to lean more gray, and/or your apple green needs to be more like a moss green.

I carry my little color chips in a ziplock bag in my purse so when I'm looking for accessories or whatever, I have the colors with me, and every time I happen to look at my little chips, I am happy with the way the colors all look together. That's how I know they all work for me!

There are lots of other little tricks but that one always seems to work for me.

I have 8 ft ceilings and love the way the colored ceilings look. In most rooms I used the same color only a few tints lighter, in the kitchen though I used the suggestion of a GW friend to go with a different and even little darker color, the results are fabulous!!!

I Ike your original idea of a stencil or wallpaper for the entry and hallways. Wallpaper is more durable, and if you found something perfect I would do it in a red hot minute.

Our entry, living room, hallways and kitchen are a medium to light custom color green that changes a lot throughout the day. Open to that are a red dining room, bedrooms in deeper green, gold, and yellow, a laundry room in Chinoiserie toile wallpaper in red, white and black, a bathroom (far away from the laundry) in a gold and red chinoiserie wallpaper, a lighter gold bathroom, a vestibule and stairway and hall in gold and a hallway at the other end of this stuff a hallway and another staircase down (new wing) in gold.

Somehow it all works because it is very spread out. Ceilings are high and all trim is painted alike except for library hallway. An interior designer chose the paint colors ten years ago and I adore them still and have no plans to change anything. I could not live in a big sea of greige.

I am not a "cultured" person. May I ask why rooms that are not visible need to tie into the front area? I loved Chloenkittys reveal and how all the colors seemed to flow so easily. Is that what you are looking for?

I "cheated" for my ongoing build, and picked up the Sherwin Williams color collections that I liked - there were two collections that strongly appealed to me -- and am ending up selecting from the greens, golds, browns and warm whites on their Global Spice palette. They and other paint suppliers do have color collections that look more like what you have in mind.

In my current house, I simply left the living, dining and hallway white, and painted the bedrooms and baths whatever pastel color appealed to me at the time. The kitchen I went more bold since it is always so dark in there.

Quite awhile ago, I was putting together rooms inspired by design seeds including how to take one design seed and use it to coordinate colors in various rooms in the house. Take a look at the thread and scroll down to October 3, 2013 at 8:52 a.m. You might find it helpful.

Using design seeds part II

I had 8' in my old house and I painted all the ceilings a color...typically a lighter shade than the wall color, but not white. The color on the ceiling really warms up a space.

I typically try to tie the colors together in the large public spaces, especially if they are open to each other, and worry less about the private spaces ...bedrooms and such can have more freedom. But then again, I am looking at my orange, blue and sage powder room which is parked next to my lavender laundry room and which has nothing to do with the gold tones in the foyer or family room. These smaller utilitarian spaces are allowed more freedom in my house as well.

If the wall colors all work together, then another option is to introduce yet one more color. The same 4th color would serve as an accent in each space. You could bring it in with wall art (or just the mats), planters, etc. I am a huge fan of wallpaper and stenciling, though, so I love that idea, too.

I wouldn't count bedroom and family bathroom colors in the mix......to me these are private spaces and should reflect the personalities of the occupants....so essentially you just have the sage green in the kitchen right now. You can pick coordinating colors you like and mix it up as SueB suggests or you could do lighter and darker shades of sage.

Others will know if I am right or wrong on this, but it's always been my understanding that if you take a fan deck and pick, for example, the third color down it will coordinate with the other colors that are third down in intensity, so you don't get colors that are jarring room to room.

For those of you wondering why I'd want to take into account the colors in the private rooms...our house is really small, and most of the doors are open all the time. Any time a person heads to the bathroom, they can see into all the bedrooms. I feel like everything is on display and there is not much privacy. What I feel when I'm at home is that everything is disconnected and much of the spaces lack flow. Even our hallway, for example, it's mainly the doors to the bedrooms with very little wallspace...it's literally the most efficient and shortest hallway I've ever experienced!

Since I need to re-paint, I was really hoping to paint in a way to somehow add a little unity. I've been looking at stencils since I'm sure DH will not go for wallpaper. I just can't decide what stencil might be a good choice, and I prefer the look of tone-on-tone so I'm not sure how that would work for green/blue/gold.

I'm leaning toward this one:
scallops

I always like these types of prints, but would that fit in with a non-formal/casual/transitional decor?

French Floral Damask

Ethnic Damask -- I like how one of the examples shows several colors on the stencil vs just one (which is probably a lot more work); but for some reason this looks really old-fashioned to me. I like the French floral better, and maybe it would work as well for incorporating green/blue/gold.

I love the rooms of a home to flow together. My aspect is probably a bit different as I also like neutrals. Our home is one level and we have used one paint neutral color throughout, except for one bathroom and the kitchen which are both a shade (or 2?) darker. Most of the larger pieces of furniture are very neutral with various textures. Dark wood pieces and most rooms have a piece of two of painted furniture. The whole house has shades of cream and taupe with accents of varying shades of aqua. The kitchen has just a touch of red and my husband's office/den is darker in color, again with some red. I pulled the red in the kitchen because I have a small metal and wood chair (antique) that has a red base and a daisy churn (a gift from my mom) that has a red handle. I was able to find a floral fabric that ties the colors together. This is the fabric, however, IRL, the colors are just a bit lighter.

That's how I make it work in our home. I like that I can pull a chair, or table, or pillows, etc. from one room and move to another room if I want to change something up.

tinam61 -- in what ways did you use that lovely fabric? Is it in every room or just one of the main spaces?

I'm sorry - I think I cut my sentence short. LOL That fabric is only used in the kitchen - for valances on the kitchen window and the adjoining breakfast nook. That is the most colorful fabric in our home, but it pulls together the aqua/cream/tan colors of the whole house, plus the addition of the red to that room.

maggieq -- that's a great point, I do want to move but it might not be for another year or two...or five, or never. It's pretty much a non-priority for my DH, and maybe this sounds bad but I'd rather get my experiments tried in this house so I know what to do or avoid at the next house ;-) Overall I think our house, when staged and de-cluttered, would probably be generally appealing. In the meantime, I prefer not to repaint the entire house but try to introduce some flow to what's currently going on.

That's actually another reason I'd want to stencil rather than wallpaper -- easy to paint over if it ended up being a major issue for selling. And, since the space I have in mind is pretty small to begin with, it's not going to be a monumental effort.

But your comment made me realize that I probably should choose a neutral that has a relatively current vibe (which takes me back to mid-tone greige...whites and creams just don't look good in the dark rooms). One wall could have the stencils with blue, green, gold, and then maybe I'll go for adding in the other colors through curtains and other textiles.

I like your colors. ;-). This painting hangs in my living room, which is the first room you see in our house. I use it for color cues for the rest of the public spaces in the house.

This house was painted when it was put on the market and I haven't changed the living room, dining room or breakfast nook, which are all painted different neutrals. Our kitchen and hall bath remodel is nearly done and I did choose blue paint for the kitchen walls and grey paint with a blue vanity for the bathroom. Our living room is painted off-white with a hint of yellow and has a blue chaise, yellow-gold curtains and yellow and blue throw pillows. The dining room is painted greige and has the same yellow-gold curtains.

Sorry for for the serial posts, I'm having trouble adding pictures. These are old as I'm still getting things put back together from our nearly finished remodel, but the colors are the same.

I think you could be happy with one of the Off White Colors. I like SW Pearl Onion. I found it in the Whites but it is really light green.

When I decorated my house, I chose brown, robin's egg blue, and green (yellow-green). The living room is painted blue, with a green sofa, green & blue stripe chair, and dark wood tables. The living room has dark brown paint, dark brown table, and blue/olive striped curtain. The kitchen is at the back of the house and separated from the dining room by a 6 foot hallway. I brightened up the colors for the kitchen with a bright spring green paint with blue and aqua accessories. I replaced brown with black for the kitchen. The bathroom is blue. So as you move from room to room, the paint may change, but the furnishings in one room tie to the paint or accessories in the next.

crl_ thanks for those pictures!

Emmarene, I hadn't considered off-whites, I was thinking of going bolder. Really like the "Celery" shade!

cawaps it sounds like you have some nice flow through your house w/o the rooms all being painted the same color. For your dark brown living room, is it a space that receives a lot of light during the day? Our living room is rather cave-like, and I'm leaning toward embracing the cave rather than fighting it!