Twinkle, I wonder if Shaker Beige HC-45 from BenM might be a good chip for you to take a look at. It looks good with BenM's Decorator White and your description of the cabs kind of sounded like Decorator's White to me. I also like Powdered Pebbles from Ellen Kennon - plays well with a lot of other colors. Hard to tell if it's warm or cool or both - it's one of *those* kinds of colors. Two very different beiges/taupes to experiment with. Randita, when you were talking about lilac my first thought was Inspired AF-595 from BenM. I've often wondered why most lilac paint colors look nothing like a real lilac. ??? Inspired does remind me of one of the colors you'd see in a lilac. Gettin' all Mother Nature-y with color reference again. :) I totally agree that there is A LOT to personal color, authentic color. I have been on Jennifer Butler's website eleventy million times. Some day I would LOVE to do something like that for myself. I like the way she talks about color. The inner essence, alignment, authentic self stuff is all right up my ally. This blurb from her site is excellent: "Up to 55% of communication is visual. In order to be seen and heard 100% there must be a congruence between your inner self, your message, and your external presentation." So very fun.

I would use a warm white towards the ivory/beige/brown family myself. A stark white next to warm tones to me would not be as complementary. If you want to know more about color, I recommend watching Color Confidential with Jane Lockhart on HGTV who is a color expert. She pairs colors and recommends shades and combinations that work well together. I have not yet seen a design I didn't like that she put together. She is so talented.

Rachel - i was just going to post RL’s thought to pull sectional toward the fireplace. A rug with blues, beiges and grays would soften things up along with wood and tufted coffee table/ottoman. A large fig green plant in corner to left of fireplace would bring warmth and cozier feeling. Some pillows that bring soft blues and grays with possibly a touch of gold would be great. Pottery Barn has several rugs with those colors you might like. Check those out. Some linen drapery at the windows will help too.

Hi Cindy! I don’t think you have too much to worry about, honestly. You’ve got a lovely room! The rug is great. Keep it forever. Even if you took everything else out of the room, the rug would look great just with your floors. If you replace the sofa with a lighter one, it will blend more into your wall. It will also pick up on the beiges in the rug. You could keep the existing sofa pillows to pull colors from the rug to that part of the room. or you could find some new pillows that you like to do the same thing. Personally, I would go with the darker beige swatch you have on the sofa. That will offer a little more contrast from the walls. Hopefully that helps! Doug