Living Room make over

We almost completed the living room paint this weekend and I am uploading some before and after pics. One thing that I was particularly impressed with is the quality of the plaster work in the house. First of all, the plaster is original. It has very few cracks and is mostly in perfect condition. The joint where the walls meets the ceiling is also perfect and cutting in the deep eggplant ceiling to meet the lavender walls was not difficult at all.

The intimacy factor of a room is increased immensely when the right color choices are used. I so often hear people criticize that it will be too dark, or the dark ceiling will make it seem low. While I feel that these people all seem to love the aesthetics of hospital waiting rooms, I can understand their fear. When I was a teenager I painted my bedroom dark grey with a black ceiling. I think I was trying to simulate a late gothic isolation chamber deep in the catacombs of some massive cathedral.

One of the key color issues that I was thinking about when painting the room is that the house is situated in the woods. When spring comes, the views out the windows will be mostly green. Green and purple have a high hugh contrast and I was very much liking the idea of seeing the greenery framed by the crisp white window trim in this purple room.

I am totally against off-whites, beiges, and "safe" colors for several reasons. First of all because they de-saturate the color in everything that they are surrounding. Second being the fact that they release the owner/painter from making design decisions about what will work in a room. When the room is totally neutral, anything will go in it and usually does. Third reason is if you are going to use white, use the brightest most crisp white that you can. You don't see color photos being printed on beige paper do you?