The Changes Paint Colors Make in a Room

Above: Before

Above: AfterAbove: Before

Above: After

This upstairs spare bedroom has many appealing architectural features: two dormer windows that create useful and cozy niches and capture extra daylight, a very interesting ceiling configuration that soars upwards within the steeply pitched roof. However...the existing wall finish and paint colors when I moved into the house were not so appealing. The walls were very heavily textured, looking like gooey icing or meringue, even to the point of swooping into little curls like the top of a Dairy Queen ice-cream in a couple of places. There was an intense pink (Pepto Bismol) color on the walls and a paler version of pink on the ceiling and the woodwork trim and doors. At first, we thought the paler version was simply the reflection of the intense pink on the walls...until we started the repaint work. So, mid-project it was necessary to purchase a couple of nice white paints for all the trim, doors and the ceiling.

For the new color on the walls, I chose a soft buttery yellow similar to the color of the walls in my own main-level bedroom. It is a delight to wake up in, and the changes the color takes on throughout the day are subtle and beautiful. One thing I approached differently than the previous pink paint work was to continue the wall color all the way up the sloping planes and to make the transition into the ceiling color at the horizontal plane of the ceiling. The previous work made a color transition where the vertical wall planes "broke" into the sloping walls. By painting the sloping "walls", the apparent height of the room was "lifted" and it accentuated the volume in the overall space. I used a paint scraper to remove a large amount of the heavy impasto texture prior to painting the new color. When the painting was complete, I added an old chandelier to allow the option of more brightness at night and character that suited the room more than the existing flush-mounted ceiling fixture. The room turned out to be as pleasant as planned!