Thank you so much! That was so nice to read. I'm glad to read that there are fans of lighter neutral walls since today at lunch I just picked up my gallon of SW West Highland White for my LR! I think that it will be the perfect foil to my dark leather chairs and soon to be purchased white slipcovered sofa. I agree w/ so many of your comments about lighter walls. I'm not always very good at articulating what's running through my head - the things that I can see so clearly but just can't explain. For instance: the right balance of light and dark. I love the look of dark oil paintings on white walls! Lush! "Become part of the room" what a wonderful statement! And Calirose - I agree w/ the whole color thing. While I dabble in art I find myself to be more creative w/ color in art when I'm not looking at color day in and day out. It sort of gives me the freedom to unleash and see color in new and different ways when it hits the canvas or furniture. I love vivid bold color on walls but I started to feel penned in since I like to move things around so much. I also started to want my walls to be a backdrop to enhance what I had - not be the first thing that people commented on when they walked into a room. You know - sort of like the photographers classic background that makes the people in the picture look great. Jan - what shade of white is that? Texashottie also has a really nice home w/ lovely neutral walls - some bordering on a bone color.

joanie_b, the finish at the top of the paneling is the same as the trim around the doors - just a basic 2" door trim with the thicker flat edge of the trim facing up. It's not your standard chair rail trim which is more streamlined. One thing I forgot to mention is that the room gets very little natural light. The windows at the den end of the room face east and there is a front porch there, so no direct sunlight after about 9 AM. The door with windows leads out onto a screened porch. So it is a pretty dark room. Thanks, everyone, for your good ideas. Three options are emerging: 1) paint it white to match the doors, 2) paint it the same color as the walls, which will eventually be a warm beige-SW Sand Dollar which I have in adjacent rooms and 3) paint it a softer white color. It is a ridged paneling (varied widths of ridges) so it would look similar to beadboard if painted. I'm going to paint the walls next week and once painted, I'll get some poster board and try the wall color and whites and see what looks good.

Painting it white or some light color will make it stand out more. Do you want that? The other option is to paint the walls a darker color which compliments the oak, which will make it stand out less. Lots less work too, painting the walls. For it not to stand out at all, the wall and oak must be painted similar colors. Right now your blueish (at least on my monitor) color on the upper wall is maximum contrast for both to stand out. I was in the same boat, and decided to paint the walls, because it was easier than doing all the trim. I strongly suggest a medium tone, since light or dark makes more contrast. Or if you paint, a color close to the trim paint color. Google paint colors to go with oak to get some ideas if you're interested. Here are a couple of my links: http://www.iheartorganizing.com/2013/04/you-asked-what-wood-you-do.html?utm_source=feedly http://www.true-design-house.com/blog/2016/3/14/bestpaint-with-honey-oak

The modern farmhouse trend of white shiplap feature walls sounds like a version of what you are asking for. Not recommending shiplap, as that was done to death, but it would give you a sense of the effect of different texture/same color. I think texture (or wallpaper) would work better than color, because the way you see color varies from wall to wall with the light. So the difference in paint colors would need to be different enough for it to look like more than that normal variation in how the same color looks on different walls of a room. I'm not sure if you can get enough contrast with whites. Maybe if your definition of white includes sufficiently off whites. Something like white grasscloth wallpaper could be a nice accent. Or a paintable textured wallpaper.