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Home Decorating

Paint: Undertone vs. Natural Light Direction?

6 years ago

Hi all. I have been away for a while but I’m back with a paint dilemma and I really enjoy painting but not so much RE-PAINTING. Short backstory – built in 2013 and now we are moving on to finishing the basement with daylight windows. When we painted the main house there are 7 different paint colors and in all rooms but 2 my trim looks white. I know what I don’t want is creamy looking trim but I don’t know how to narrow down my paint choices to achieve that and I am not sure what exactly is making them creamy? The interesting thing is the 2 rooms that go creamy on me both have larger windows on the EAST and smaller windows on the NORTH. They also both have a bluish/greenish paint. I can’t tell if it’s the blue paint that pulls the cream out or if it’s the natural light that I should be concerned about or both? Any words of wisdom there? I am not sure where to focus my paint selections to keep my trim white!

Details on the creamy looking trim rooms: My bedroom is SW Quietude and the trim is super creamy in there. My sons bedroom is more of a truer bolder blue but on the wall it casted a purple undertone (shhh-I wasn’t repainting at that point my hand was tired from painting the whole house) and the trim is definitely more creamy. We also do live in the woods so there is plenty of green out there to bounce around but right now plenty of white with all of this snow.

Side note – I have BM Revere Pewter in my closet (window on the WEST) and master bath (window on the NORTH) and I like it but it’s not at all a gray it’s definitely more of a tanish color in there but it looks fine and trim is white.

I struggle between just repeating the colors upstairs that I know look fine and branching out and doing something new because it’s a clean slate and it’s kind of fun if you don’t screw it up! We have an exercise room that has a window on the NORTH and a bathroom with no window at all so zero

natural light. These 2 rooms both have me nervous.

Any suggestions?

Thank you in advance for your time.

Lisa

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Wow! Thank you ALL for your valuable feedback, you've given me a lot to think about. Remember when i said don't pay too much attention to the details on the drawings as they do not reflect the current floor plan. The primary suit actually looks like this now (the blue is my husband's walk-in closet and the area marked "changing" is my walk in closet): 3onthetree I agree whole heartedly that a bath is inefficient so it was the first thing to go when we remodeled our bathroom last month! the breaking of the stairwell is not technically an option as per our contractor and architect's advise. Jennifer K, what you can't see from the attached plans is that this house is semi-detached i.e. the yellow line is a shared wall with my neighbor so there is no possibility whatsoever of adding any windows to that wall. You hit the nail on the head with: "It sounds like your home has plenty of space, but some of it is in the wrong spot", and although this is very much a first world problem it is also very frustrating! K L definitely a living room! the terrace faces my neighbor (he has a window directly looking onto the terrace )and given that it is only covered by a small pergola, our voices would carry. if i decide to leave this terrace area I will be turning it into a very small garden to bring in some greenery as you walk up onto the first floor, it is unlikely that I would add seating. Also, don't forget that the primary suit already has a balcony (it looks small in the floor plan attached but it has recently been made larger and can seat two with a small coffee table VERY comfortably).
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