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Paint Home Decorating Design Dilemma

Blue accent wall surrounding fireplace in living room?

3 years ago

Looking for design advice:

Trying to decide on an accent wall surrounding the fireplace or not for the living room in our new house. My husband loves the idea of a rich navy blue accent wall surrounding the fireplace. I liked the idea at first but I am worried it will dominate the room and darken it too much, making it feel smaller than it is.

Rest of the walls will be Benjamin Moore Wickham Gray (which is a cool gray with blue gray undertones). Blue we are considering is BM Van Deusen. Trim will be BM Snow White. See comments for example from BM app.

*Note: Ignore furniture and current colors, this is the listing photo. Fireplace surround will be redone, likely in a darker tile because we want this room to have a more masculine design feel. Our main aesthetic is transitional and furniture will be color matched to the paint choices we make - in general we stick to blues, grays, white/cream, chestnut leather, occasional greens, and black.

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Comments (4)

Jessica Fried
Original Author
3 years ago

Example of proposed paint choices.
freedomplace1
3 years ago
The Wickham Gray is not going to work well with the existing carpeting. Don’t know if carpet is staying. Navy accent with grey and the carpet is not complementary, either.

The grey trend is over. So unless you really just love grey, I would consider something lighter and brighter that will also work with carpeting.
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graywings123
3 years ago
I would paint the entire wall in the accent color, as well as the window wall, as the previous owner did. More importantly, I would get the furniture, carpeting, etc. chosen before deciding on the wall color. It's a lot easier to match paint to furniture than furniture to paint.

reassessed
arcy_gw
3 years ago
It's a beautiful room as is. I assume the picture is a realtor pic of the sellers belongings. Not a lot of us have rust homes. I agree one would need to know your furniture and other color choices before answering but I would say as far as making the room seem smaller--it appears the room can handle it unless pictures are deceiving. It's a great sized room.

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