Color suggestions?

[wolf]

Originally Posted by Queen of the Ryche

I have heard they paint rooms/halls in mental institutions pink for the calming effect - ?

We have some pink hallways because there was leftover paint. That is how many of our paint colors are chosen. The crisis staff bathroom, which had previously been "15 years of dirt over cream colored paint" was recently painted peach because there was a can of it in the basement.

There is gray paint on the floors in the stairwells because it was leftover from painting some battleship or other. (no joke ... Navy Surplus Paint)

[Cyclefrance]

Always been a bit nervous of painted walls in bedrooms. English style is for wallpaper on the (you guessed it) walls - maybe a nice Farrow and Ball hand-finished jobby (or try some American wallpapers) and just the minimum of complementary colour on the accompanying woodwork. Nothing like the texture of paper to sooth things down - paint can be so hard no matter what you try. Colourwise something with a 'dusty' in the description (e.g. dusty peach, dusty apricot and so on) as they help to, well, hide the dust and bedrooms for some reason just seem to get dustier than all the other rooms (well ours do). Make sure you create some appropriate focal point - you know the sort of thing, a canopy over the bed, or an elaborate piece of metalwork furniture. or an ornate mirror, any of which will also help to soften the background decor. Whatever you do, though, don't go for the checkered effect all over the room - 12" squares of contrasting colours will never work!

[Griff]

I'm partial to white texture paint as a compliment to wood, but I have seen some nice things done with browns that suprised me.