Ignoring the whole north-facing, dark room issue for a moment. How do you want your family room to look? Whatever you end up with, it has to be something that you like, not just what designers say you should do. All the color advice in the world is useless if you don't like the colors, shades or tones recommended. So my gut feeling is that if you mostly like creamy walls with white trim, then that's what you should do in this family room, instead of trying to embrace darker colors. Creamy, warm, white walls will certainly brighten this space, while darker walls may make you feel it is too dark. Short-term, a lighter colored area rug or two will brighten up the floor and make the room seems brighter and airier. Long-term, I'd invest in more lighting. Two chandeliers, if the room size is large enough. Wall scones, definitely. And a few floor and table lamps for task lighting. You've got dark floors. Stick to light colors on the walls and mid-tones for the furniture. I moved in to a house with one room painted a dark, navy blue. It wasn't cozy, it didn't warm up the room. The color just made the room dark. And no matter how many lamps I added to the room, the wall color just seemed to soak up all the light. It was either paint, or saw the room off the house. So my advice is that if you like light-colored walls, putting up a darker color in an already dark room will not work for you.

As others have pointed out a north-facing room will have no direct sunlight and little natural light 365 days a year. The good thing about north light, as any architect or artist will tell you, is that the lighting level and color will tend to be the same throughout much of the day, i.e., you will never have hot spots, glare and significantly different lighting levels throughout the day. If it was my house I'd find a cream, white or other light value color to enhance and amplify the overall light level level. Creams and whites come in a wide range of hue and temperature biases. I always recommend that consumers buy several of the small sample containers and do "brush ons" on several surfaces which are parallel and perpendicular to one another and to the windows, since colors always look different depending on where they are located. They also look different depending on whether the day is sunny or overcast. Good luck with your project!

Why do you feel you need to consider colors that you dont like? Houses are to be enjoyed by the people that live there. You dont have to be trendy. Personally, I dislike anything tan, or beige, greige or green, so no matter how trendy, I wouldnt use them anywhere in my house. I do like gray, but that gray paint must look gray, and if any undertones, they must be blue, not the purple or green that some grays have. Put colors on your wall, that appeal to you, and that will make you smile. I use a lot of turquoise in different shades, because it makes me happy. Apparently, it makes others happy too, since I recently had someone tell me, they liked coming in my house, and found themselves staying longer than they meant to because, the colors make them happy and make them feel good.

Oh Gosh! I'm going though the same thing. I'm leaning towards Simply White in my north-facing room. I know it can read really yellow in a south-facing room but a warm but still really bright in a north facing room with that cool light coming in. I'm afraid Chantilly white will read too stark. I'm painting both my bedroom and kitchen, one on top of the other with the same northern light. Also, I think of it as a color for modern spaces and I live in an old, historic house. Just not sure I can pull it off. Abbyfaye, I'd love to see your pictures! I have simply white in my hallways and like it. Is it weird to have it in my bedroom and kitchen too? I got samples from samplize and white dove comes across really greige/taupe and not very bright. I'm not loving it at all. Mystery to me why it is so popular. I'm losing my mind looking at blogs on the best white paint! Have to make a decision by Thursday!