What are good mature, elegant, or even “neutral” purple SW colors?
Ali G
2 years ago
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My3dogs ME zone 5A
2 years agoRelated Discussions
Neutrals, neutrals, neutrals
Comments (25)One way to paint with resale in mind and still have color in rooms is to paint the most difficult ones in colors considered "acceptable" for your market and to reserve the color you want for easier-to-paint rooms. As an example, our master bedroom has a beamed ceiling, with the beams set into the walls. That means that there are three wall surfaces per beam requiring cutting in. Sixteen long beams, including one at each end of the room running across the length. This room had been an uninteresting white, and I redid it in a neutral mushroom color. For the cutting in required around the beams -- white to mushroom means two coats, so that worked out to the equivalent of 64 beams to meticulously paint around. Part of the wall in which five or six beams were set was on the other side of an open stairwell. So, regardless of what other colors I might conceivably have envisioned this room, there was no way it was going to be anything other than a classic, warm neutral! I do agree with posters who argue for painting for yourself. I knew within weeks of moving into our former house that it was a huge, huge mistake. Roughly 18 years later, we moved. The whole time, I lived with neutrals that weren't particularly interesting because every year I thought: THIS is the year in which we move. But are neutral rooms always necessary for resale? Someone bought an 18th C. stone house on the river with the intention of reselling. I saw it under its previous owner and was charmed by its quirks and character. The new owner has certainly improved it both structurally and mechanically, and floors are new, as is the paint job. Alas, there is absolutely no charm left. Every wall is an off white, all the trim is white...the owner may have thought potential buyers would easily envision their own things in these spaces, but I thought that every room required a new paint job. Isn't that back to square one? By contrast, one of the best real estate agents in the area lived near our former house. She sold her house very quickly. The outside was purple, with deep lavender trim. I recall a dark red room, or maybe it was orange. Another room was a bright green or bright blue....Granted, the town is one in which people want to live, not too many places come on the market, and the market itself was very different. But still...orange...blue...in fact, there may not have been a single neutral room in the place. I think the sunroom was a dark green. If you crave color but think you might want to move, just remember, too: with some exceptions, painting doesn't take very long....See MoreWhat says "Elegant Bedroom" to you?
Comments (67)What a feast of a thread. Ida Claire, I've never been a "brown" person at all, but in an orgy of trying to finish our build cheaply and making hurried choices, I ended up with a bedroom accidentally painted a light taupe with medium brownish-taupe tight-weave indoor-outdoor carpeting ($1/yard!, but just temporary--5 years ago). I like bedrooms that are at their best at night, but live in a hot climate that makes white especially refreshing. In any case, the room's a calm harmonious scheme of taupe, cream, white and brown, with a couple antiques of a rich dark wood. Other muted colors are added in art, lamps, etc. It's coming along slowly since I'm never in there during the day. What I wanted to say was that it recently got a great leap forward by an old oil painting I purchased at an auction. An oceanscape, I wasn't all that enthused at the auction, where it was badly lit, but it was fairly large :) and had a nice old gold frame, and nobody else bid on it. Got it home in place, and I absolutely love it. It has the colors of the room, some darker, some blues, greens, waves breaking on rocks with the earliest sunlight barely, barely breaking from the left. I put a lamp on the dresser to light it from that side, and it glows gently. In any case, the oils and frame give a richness and texture, the quality and the way it settles in to a room that was waiting for it elegance, and the scene a quiet vitality and movement. Hadn't realized my bedroom would benefit from that last, but it really does. Depth, too....See MoreNeed help picking neutral (whole) home interior paint color
Comments (101)Comedy of errors (only after we had a few drinks was it comedic) 1. We greatly underestimated the effort to paint textured walls, especially on the ceiling. That and we're 15 years older than many of the projects we've done the past. 2. Turns out we got the wrong color paint. I'm not sure why I had a different color paint stuck in my head and even though I checked color swatches I still got it wrong. And now that we're going to pay someone to do it I definitely want to make sure the color is right. Only after I came back to this post did I realize I gave the store the wrong color. We're going to suck it up and pay someone to do it which is good because that also includes trim and doors. Although now I have to take a week off of work. Good news: we can donate the paint to Habitat for Humanity ReStore....See MoreBM Edgecomb Gray & Balboa Mist turn Purple - SW Natural Tan pink. HELP
Comments (24)Neutral colors are a mix of different colors, so depending on what you have next to your neutral the neutral color appears to pink or blue or green or yellow. It really isn't a foreign concept to most women, we just haven't thought about paint color the same way we look at makeup and clothing. My sister has an olive skin tone and medium brown hair, I have an ivory skin tone and dark hair and my sister in law has blond hair, blue eyes and a fair golden skin tone. We don't look good in the same colors. Your home is full of colors. What looks good next to my purples and purple reds and smokey teals won't look good next to my sister's greens and golds and orange reds or next to my sister in law's cornflower blue, peach and butter yellows. We each had to pick neutrals that went with the decor and flooring and woods that fill our home. Can you imagine my purples, reds and teals with a moss green neutral a yellow tan or is it better with a taupe that has slightly purple undertones? Below is a demonstration of how neutrals can look very different based on the colors around them. Both sections have one color in the center of each block. It is the same color in each block all the way across the page, yet the color appears more pink or green or yellow or blue depending on the color next to it. If edgecomb gray is picking up purple you probably have yellow undertones around it. Edgecomb gray is a pretty solid neutral with just a hair more pink and less green than revere pewter. Baby Fawn or tapestry beige may work nicely - just a bit less pink/purple undertones and a hair more yellow. I would recommend that you pick your flooring before picking the paint color because it could also change the perceived wall color. If you can gather together samples of the colors that are staying and lay them out on a white sheet in natural daylight (I like to do this outside on a clear day) and look at a bunch of neutral swatches next to the colors you will start seeing the patterns. More yellow looks better or grayer looks better a little more green looks better....See MoreAli G
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