Paint colors

Righteous or not, I have been consumed with paint colors recently.  That's what happens when you get a new house with someone else's paint colors.

This house was a builder's spec home originally, and the previous owners did not change any colors, so they are "good" colors, chosen by a designer.  Mostly, they make sense.

They are not what I would have chosen.

All the trim is Dover White (SW), which is more creamy yellow than I care for these days.  But whatever.  I think we're stuck with it.  There is a lot of trim in this house: crown moulding everywhere, shadowboxing in the dining room and the foyer, a coffered ceiling in the dining room, all kinds of built-ins in the entryway, built-in shelves all over the upstairs... and every bit of it is Dover White.  I will deal with it.

The walls are nearly all Neutral Ground (SW), which is a warm beige with an LRV of 70.  It should be okay, probably, but it just isn't fresh at all.  At least it matches the Dover White, because that isn't fresh either.  In this house, the Neutral Ground looks very rosy most of the time, like a pink that was not committed to.  Sometimes in the darker corners, it looks decidedly golden.

I can see why they chose these colors.  We have a lot of windows, but they face north.  A screen porch shields the family room windows, and tall trees surround and shade the back yard.  It is a cool, dim exposure.  They were undoubtedly trying to brighten and warm.  Yet, somehow it just feels heavy.

And, oddly, the kitchen cabinets are gray.  They registered as white originally, but they are decidedly gray.  I don't have a record of what color they are, but they are surprisingly close to Revere Pewter (BM).  This poses the biggest problem with the Neutral Ground.  To my eye, the gray cabinet color looks terrible with Neutral Ground.

Only the dining room is not painted Neutral Ground.  The dining room is a super dark blue-gray:

This does provide a striking contrast for the woodwork, but it is so very heavy.  And it will look terrible with my dark cherry dining room furniture, which is classic and I love it and I'm definitely hanging on to it.  (We went furniture shopping yesterday, and there is no beautiful classic furniture anymore; only tremendously disappointing modern stuff of dubious quality for outrageous prices.) .Also, this room has a southern exposure, and I expect that perhaps if these walls were not soaking up all the light, some brightness would bounce through to the kitchen.

I've been consumed with figuring out how to fix these colors to suit my taste.  I cannot spend more time on it.  I have other things I must do.  So, I'm recording my work here for future reference.

I love light blue--wispy, airy, touch of sky blue.  With all the northern exposure here, I think I need to go for a warm blue with some aqua tones, but this is where I think I'm heading:

Great Room (family room plus kitchen and breakfast nook) walls:  BM Ocean Air.  This is a lovely greenish blue with some gray in it, and an LRV of 73.15.  For reference, it seems to me that an LRV above 65 starts to register as a shade of white.  When we painted our halls and stairway Tapestry Beige at Lake Pointe, I spent months trying to find the right color, and once it was up, I thought, "Oh.  It's white."  Of course, it isn't really, and I do love the color.  It has an LRV of 67.35, and it is very light and bright, sort of a pale pastel form of olive khaki.  Ocean Air is considerably lighter than that, so I think it will be very freshening, and pretty, even with the north exposure.

This will also be the color that will touch the cabinets, and I think it will enhance them much more than the Neutral Ground does.

Ocean Air next to the cabinets (sorry for the blur).

vs

Neutral Ground next to the cabinets.

I hope this will work out.  I also hope it will actually someday get implemented.

Then that dark dining room.  Ahhhhgh.

I want to paint the dining room walls Annapolis Green (LRV 62.39--about as light as you can go and still have it register more as a color than as white).  This is really blue, as far as I can tell.  It is a lighter shade of the paint I used on my Lake Pointe front door, Seacliff Heights, which I've never heard of anyone using, but I love.  I chose it over Palladian Blue, because Palladian Blue looked green to me, and Seacliff Heights was similar but bluer.  Oh the irony.  Palladian Blue is green, and Annapolis Green is blue.  You just have to try hard to use your eyes.

So yes.  Annapolis Green on the dining room walls, and then Blue Bonnet on the dining room ceiling between the coffers.  I think it will be luminescently beautiful.

I'd like to continue the Blue Bonnet in the adjacent foyer that opens to the right (or, technically, I guess we would be starting in the foyer... based on one's impressions upon entering the house).

Our master bathroom has venetian gold granite and some sort of cocoa-beige tile, and then the Neutral Ground walls, which definitely cast pink in there.  They're all fighting each other.  I'm pretty sure Tapestry Beige on the walls will calm things down, but given the colors in there (including a purple-burgundy fleck in the granite), I don't think it will be possible for me to have my signature blue bedroom and maintain any sort of flow from bed to bath.

I'm considering this for my bedroom walls, and doing my bed in ivory, light tan and softest blush, with pale mauve and deeper plum linens in the bathroom (since I can't even find a beige or tan that doesn't clash).  Am I crazy???