i'm sure they get a zillion emails a day, but i submitted a question to them last night to keep in mind for their "burning questions" blog, and they responded to me right away! yay!
my burning question was: how do i make a dark room look brighter?
i love the character of the dark wood throughout our house, but billy and i have always been at odds over the dark wood paneling in our dining room and great room. despite the plethora of windows in each room, and despite my efforts to brighten by putting down a huge white rug, long light colored curtains, repainting the ceiling a brighter white, and adding as much artificial lighting as possible, i still hate how dark it looks:
i think the dark wood paneling takes away from the beauty of the floors, and the two foot deep windowsills are completely lost and unappreciated in the one dimensional dark wood wall world.
lots of people have told me that the wood walls are "so valuable" and "they don't make them like that anymore", but i really think that instead of adding to the room, it's taking away.
sherri at young house love responded that i was doing all the right things in trying to brighten the room. the only thing left to do is actually paint. she also said that it's a fact that realtors and home appraisers these days look for and encourage painting dark walls such as ours because it's more appealing to today's customer, and making the room look bigger and brighter is key. basically, the dark wood walls are outdated.
sherri also suggested that i either do something amazing (cook the best dinner ever) or magical (hypnosis?) to try to convince billy to paint. i'm hoping that squeezing out a baby in february will do the trick. in my opinion that seems highly amazing as well as magical.
i dream of bright white trim and a beautiful wall color... either a light grey-blue or a warm golden color. like one of these: (thanks martha)
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i really think it would do wonders for the rooms. the beautiful wood floors, the dark wood staircase in the great room, the dark wood beams, and our amazing wood frame windows would really pop and be so much more appreciated. plus the rooms would be big and bright, not dark and lodgey feeling.
who's with me!?
9 comments:
I love the idea of painting!! I agree with you its totally too dark and once you paint, it is going to make that room so much brighter, more alive and warm and people will just want to sit in there all day :) I like both colors but am leaning towards the yellow one just cause it looks like it would go well with what you have in there right now. Good Luck!!
Yellow! It's warm and inviting :)
Blue-Grey, its comforting :)
I'm with ya! It's definitely beautiful wood, but yes, definitely on the dark side. My vote is for the warmer tone...I think it would complement your furniture nicely and not have a cooling effect, like the wood already does. Especially if your goal is to open the room up. Just my two cents:)
thanks ladies! we'll see if i can win billy over on this one in the next few months. i like the warmer tone too, but our whole upstairs is already yellow and i tend to lean towards yellow so i think i might want to try and do something a little different. do they make a warm gray tone? haha. i'll write more on this subject once i can convince billy to paint! :)
I think you should paint the dressing area off your master bedroom to see how you like the wood painted. You could even try the blue-grey in there to see how you like it. It's the same wood and even darker in there than the L/R & D/R. Personally I like the wood downstairs, it's very warm and inviting not dark and dismal. Besides, painting over wood is quite the chore and those are two big rooms.
Just lil ol' mom's opinion.
paint!! i wonder what a wash would look like? so you could still see the wood grain, but have the floor and windowsills pop. http://www.papercreek.com/images/WoodWallColors.jpg
might be kind of hard.. anyway i prefer the blue.
i love the idea of a wash. billy kind of achieved that look by just putting one coat of paint on our dining room table legs so you could still see the grain. i wonder if we just did a coat on the walls if the same look would be achieved...
mom i will try the dressing room first, but you're just saying you like the wood in the great room because you don't want to have to paint it! don't worry, if we paint those rooms i'm hiring a professional! it's too big a job!
I'm with you (and Sherri) on this one and I think the golden buttery color would be gorgeous with the other decor you have in there. You're going to want some brightness in there when baby comes, too. :)
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