Sis, we picked a gold for our master bath five years ago when it was remodeled. It's large and open, the floor tile is beige and wall tile is cream with a copper accent strip. The cabinets are stained English Walnut (dark brown) and the granite is called something gold, though it is tan and has black and peach colors in it. I thought the bold gold color would be great.

I hated the gold from the minute I saw it! DH said I would get used to it, it would grow on me, etc. but I continued to hate it and kept pestering him to repaint. We finally did it about a month ago. We went with a bright blue green. As we were painting I thought I'd gone overboard and should have picked a lighter shade, but now that it's done I love it!

It brightens the room and brings out colors in everything. I'm so glad we finally did it!

Donna

I'm struggling with this same issue in my bedroom. It's south facing, and almost every color washes right out during the day, and then looks another way with the lights on at night. But any one of the off whites looks institutional. So I need to go several shades darker than I would like to in there. But it's a small room, so I feel like I might get a closed-in feeling if I go too dark. Ugh!

Yes I have struggled with this too. Our master bedroom has pumpkin pine floors which I love but they definitely affect the wall color. Navajo Beige turned pink!! I ended up with SW Creamy and it is a perfectly creamy delight,

pink, a dark painted room has the opposite effect on me. Instead of feeling closed in, I feel like the room embraces me. I feel snuggled and cozy :)

I have always loved Tibbrix's winter room that is painted Lennox Tan and was so hoping it would work in my room. It didn't, but it made me realize that's the warm cozy feel that I want for my own room. Almost like a warm caramel color- so I'm now looking at colors that are about that same lrv, and that will appear that color in my own room.

And it's not necessarily that a light color won't work in my particular room, but that it doesn't give me the feeling that I want.

Sorry- it's actually Lenox Tan with one n. Can never get that right!

At least north facing rooms are the most consistent for light, once you get it right. It is so hard to tell on a small sample, even a posterboard doesn't give the best idea of the entire room in the same paint. I just painted my living room after I painted it less than 6 months ago - just trying to get the color where I want it. I finally like what I painted my bedroom, bathroom, kitchen and living room but it took a lot of tries. Wish I could tell you an easier way other than trial and error. I just ordered some carpet for my bedroom after just looking at a small sample which is all they had. I hope I got that right!

monica- that's the way I feel about a dark room- cozy! I guess too it depends on how the room is used. For instance I don't want my kitchen dark but I like a dark dining and family room.

If you want light and bright in a north-facing room, use a very warm white. Otherwise, use a saturated color.

My go-to color for warm whites now is BM Capitol White. My kitchen gets no natural light, and it's just gorgeous.

Definitely has happened to me! I wanted navy in my family room. A consultant picked Summer's Day, a saturated but slightly muddy green. I would have never picked it but it looks great. Same with our den. I'm not a beige person. I was thinking Palladian Blue. Consultant picked Alexandria Beige, which is a deep, saturated beige/brown. Looks perfect. I decided to use whatever the consultant suggested for those few rooms and I am so happy with them.

We also once decided to forego our usual master bedroom color and go with orange. Bright orange. I loved the color but not for our bedroom. After 6 months we had it painted to our signaure master color: Middlebury Brown. So happy we repainted.

I was incredibly lucky to buy a house where the owner used a color consultant. While all of the rooms are some shade of beige/brown, they are perfect for me. The unfortunate thing is that they are all custom colors without formulas and I can't replicate them.

Fun2BHere, the store they got the paint from should have the formulas.

I used Sherwin Williams Accessible Beige in my north facing butler's pantry. I love the way it looks in there, much more than in the south facing room.

gw · More Info

I did our living room in a deep brown/gray/green. It is definitely cozy.

It looks different now as we had just moved in.

gw · More Info

Tibbrix, thanks for posting. Unfortunately, the leftover paint had been decanted into generic cans. I took the lid with the formula to Benjamin Moore and Dunn Edwards, but neither could make sense of the formula. That was a few years ago, so by this time, with the changes that paint companies make to their bases, I would probably do better to just try for a match.

Fun2BHere, the painters matched the shade on a part of a wall where a cabinet was demolished by chipping a bit of paint off the wall and going to Sherwin-Williams with it. The paint they got matched perfectly (a light minty green).

theclose, I Googled Alexandria Beige and what a dreamy creamy beige! I love it! But then I Googled Middlebury Brown and my heart skipped a beat or two :) Gorgeous colors. And they look like they go so well together. What other paint colors do you have in your home?