Katie Phillips
Yes, my dining room (Benjamin Moore New London Burgundy) might be the color of a good pinot noir and contrast from the dark green trim (Benjamin Moore Forest Floor) in the rest of my house, but it’s tied to the same color family as the light pink in my master bathroom (Benjamin Moore Pink Beach). Green and red are opposite each other on the color palette and both demand attention, but also play up each other.
Thus it’s important to made sure any paint colors you pull are heavily tinted, shaded, or toned. Each of the colors in Berrybrier have been toned (added grey) down to make them less extreme.
You want light colors besides dark to create that contrast which allows them both to shine. They’re highly contrasting, but they compliment each other since one is quiet, light and subtle; and the other is bold, dark, and dynamic.
I wanted a subtle, clean wall color for the main spaces at Berrybrier that didn’t go too grey or too beige. The same colors are in the entry (which is really just a corner of the living room) and the small space has a lot of trimwork.
The bolder trim color highlights all the traditional trimwork in such an awesome way! Now if we add in Benjamin Moore’s Black, the colors are thrown into higher contrast. In my dining room, this color takes center stage on the walls and the trim! If we step out even further and you look at how this dining room connects to the rest of the house, you consider three colors once more: Brushed Aluminum, Forest Floor, and New London Burgundy.
If they were both painted darker hues, the two spaces would read totally differently. Here we focus again on a green tone: Benjamin Moore’s Tate Olive. In my bedroom however, I didn’t do the trimwork the same color as the walls, but instead opted for a subtle contrast by using the same Forest Floor that was on the trim throughout the rest of the house. Here in my master bedroom you can see how this subtle contrast lends itself to the more elaborate trimwork of my older house. As a variant shade of red, pink is a great complement to green and this color combo has been very popular lately. Benjamin Moore’s Pink Beach creates a bright and rosy room off of the darker and moodier master bedroom.
The color of the bathroom, Pink Beach is so light compared to the darker bedroom, but one of the reasons why it feels right in the overall house palette is because it ties into the dining room’s New London Burgundy. Although I’ve used six different paint colors, my house can be summed up into three hues: green, red, black. 6-9 paint colors works well for a smaller 1,400 square foot home with 3 bedrooms; any more could feel disjointed and jarring. In a larger 3,000 square foot home you could potentially have more paint colors since there are more rooms.
Make sure things are reading well as a whole palette and it doesn’t look like someone threw the paint store swatch aisle into your home. Always, always stay away from super bright “pure” color for paint, make sure your swatch looks grey’ed down and tonal.
Remember, there’s always a good design that breaks all these rules, but it’s hard to achieve unless you’re trained to know what you’re doing!
