Color me crazy....

COLOR ME CRAZY....

January 4th -- no one showed up to work today.  Hmmm, I wonder if that has to do with the fact that the high temp is barely above 20 degrees and it started snowing overnight and has only stopped for brief breaks.

With no one here to distract me, and in between breaks to shovel the snow off the sidewalk, I've been trying to deal with the color palette for the house again.  I'm pretty much sold that the foyer and stairwell to the upper level and the front living room will be painted "on the rocks"  gray for the walls, "snowbound" for the ceiling, and "high gloss white" for the mill work trim around the windows and baseboards.  There will be a light gray carpet on the stairs.  The same color scheme will be used in the gathering room with the exception of a possible accent for the fireplace wall in a darker gray to complement the slate tile around the black fireplace.

I began to think that too much gray might make my otherwise very cozy old house seem too cool, so I started to look at "warmer" colors and "warm neutrals", especially since some rooms, like the kitchen, will be very white and maybe too cool.

Although I selected white cabinets in the kitchen because there is only one window and I wanted the kitchen to be bright, with the stainless steel appliances, white subway tile, oak floors and nordic black antiqued granite, I started thinking that only the deep blue pendant lights over the sink and over the breakfast bar would provide some color.  So, I decided to revisit whether I want to have a painted accent on the wall between the kitchen and the dining room.

To remind you, here are some photos of that wall, the first from the west end of the galley kitchen looking through the kitchen to the dining room

This is the same wall, but the view is from inside the laundry room so you can see that the original hutch, which is white, is also on this wall and that on the other side of the wall is the dining room with the sliding door.

There are three possible paint colors for this wall.  Here are all three possibilities together, with the white cabinets and the granite.

Option 1 is "celestial blue"

 Option 2 is "lupine blue" (note the flash on the camera washed this color out a bit, other photos will show it darker and richer)

Option 3 is "on the rocks"

Which of these three combinations do you like for the accent wall?

I also picked up two "warmer" color options for the walls, but these are not easy to see in the photographs, but here goes.

The color with more yellow is called "paper lantern" and the one with less yellow (but there is a bit of yellow in it, although it looks white/gray in these photographs) is called "crisp linen."  Who makes up the names of these colors and gets paid for doing so?   How can I get hired for this job?

The guest suite could benefit from a bit of warmer color since it is on the north side of the house, so I'm thinking of "paper lantern" for the wall colors in that room with just a bit of the lupine blue accent on the wall feature that frames the library doors, shown below:

The dining room will be "paper lantern" for the walls and "lupine" for the accent wall around the library doors, shown below.  I'm thinking of mirroring these two colors -- paper lantern for the walls  with lupine as the accent in the guest suite (shown above) and the dining room, which is on the other side of the library doors.

I am still trying to figure out the colors for the master bedroom.

Option 1:  "Snowbound" for the ceiling (top color); "lupine" for the accent wall around the three windows on the north wall; and the walls "on the rocks" shown below.

 

Option 2:  "Snowbound" for the ceiling (top color); "celestial" for the accent wall around the three windows on the north wall; and the walls "on the rocks" shown below.

Options 3 & 4:  "Snowbound" for the ceiling (top color); "lupine" or "celestial blue" for the accent wall around the three windows on the north wall; and the walls "paper lantern" shown below.

(These photos suggest that the master bedroom would look like either the IKEA sign or the national flag of Sweden, but the yellow is NOT that yellow).

 It is super difficult to photograph and represent these colors because of the variables in my camera and flash, the color balance on your computer monitor, the light of the day (it is overcast and snowing and late afternoon), and the influence of adjacent colors (e.g., the "paper lantern" looks more yellow when it is next to the "crisp linen.".

So, here are just some shots of the ceiling color, the two blues, the gray ("on the rocks") and the two warm neutrals all mashed together.

Your opinions are welcome and very much appreciated!