Paint Scheme Ideas w/Molding?
I’m having some rooms renovated and I would like to get some paint scheme ideas. I figure if anyone should know, you guys would. My apartment building was built in the late 1920’s. The cove ceilings are 9’high (cove: the wall-to-ceiling contour is a curve rather than a 90 degree angle) and the ceiling itself…
I’m having some rooms renovated and I would like to get some paint scheme ideas. I figure if anyone should know, you guys would.
My apartment building was built in the late 1920’s. The cove ceilings are 9’high (cove: the wall-to-ceiling contour is a curve rather than a 90 degree angle) and the ceiling itself appears as a large, slightly ‘inset’ panel.
There is a molding on the walls at approximately the 8†level that runs around interior perimeter of the room. The long walls also have molding that forms three rectangular panels about 6′ tall and spaced about half a foot apart: each panel has a smaller rectangle panel inside it separated by a 3†border. The short width walls have a similar rectangular molding panel between the windows (the windows also have molding of course), and finally there’s 7†high base molding. Kind of hard to describe, but there’s a bunch of molding!
Does anyone have a good online source that has a plethora of images of walls with molding so I can get some ideas about how and where to apply the paint? Right now everything is white. I want to seem how it would look to either accentuate the molding and/or the boarders with different tones (or possibly different hues).
Thanks a bunch for any references or ideas!
Renomandru, thanks but I already have sample pots, thought you meant larger containers. Oxygen, one of the salespeople at the Soho F&B store was especially helpful. I wish I remembered his name but he was tall and enthusiastic and used the adjective “fresh” a lot if that rings any bells. Good color advice and the paint looks great on the walls. Very pricey though.
renomandru,
I went to the Farrow and Ball website and it’s a gold mine of info and ideas!
I decided to get a little deeper in my plastering. The ceilings many thick paint layers which add eight and cause cracking. I am now going to have it all scraped off, then a large sheet of mesh put on with plaster on that to bond it to the substrate, then the whole thing skim coated.
This will look really nice and it also gives me some more time to decide on paint schemes.
I am going to look over the color charts on the Farrow & Ball website, and if I see some colors I’m interested in, I may take you up on the paint sample pot offer if you have those colors.
Shoot me an email:
xxxfringe@hotmail.com
Replace the ‘xxx ‘ above with ‘purple’
Thanks again for all the great ideas. It is really a rich subject, it gets more fascinating the more I understand a bit of the history of these rooms and moldings also. I just discovered that the molding one foot below my ceiling is actually called ‘picture rail molding. And was designed to accept ‘S’ shaped hangers to hang picture wires/pictures from. I’m an artist and had devised a not too dissimilar system in my studio to hold paintings I’m working on…it’s fascinating to learn the functional aspect of these older homes and the molding. Previously, I just thought that stuff was an impediment to the clean modern lines.
BHS,
Only free remnants in the sample pots, mind you! I think I have Dimity and Pointing in pots. If interested, post your contact info.
Renomandru, free F&B paint!? I’d be interested in any Dimity, Archive, Pointing, Down Pipe, or New White you’re looking to part with. Thanks!
Thanks for the many excellent ideas! My mind is starting to get a feel for the terrain now…the more I delve into the sources mentioned, the more interesting this topic becomes. I just wish I had a bit more time to process it: I need to make a decision on the paint scheme today.
Please post up any more additional comments or ideas if you have them.
Thanks!
-Oxygen
If you can afford to splurge a little bit, check out Farrow and Ball paints. They have two retail stores in Manhattan and sell only historical colors. Their most basic flat wall paint is made with clay and has a ton of pigments.
The names like “Dead Salmon” just kill me. They also sell little sample pots, as some Benjamin Moore dealers also do. We had a tough time deciding and ended up with 20+ little pots. If you find some Farrow and Ball paints you like, we might even have what you want. Free.
Good luck.
I’m not sure how much of these books you’ll be able to view online, but try:
http://bit.ly/PsCTk and http://bit.ly/WqoWG
I have read a bunch of interior design books from the teens and 1920s and they were into muted earth tones. There’s a lot of discussion of muted grays and “buff” and “gentle green”. They decorated with brown. There was a belief that the floor should be the darkest color and then the walls and the ceiling lightest. The biggest difference from our modern ideas about colors is there is no bright white. Maybe creamy white or cream or buff or soft gray but never bright white. I have a house from 1919 and saw the original (or early) paint colors when the wall paper layers were removed. Dining room was a deep green, bathrooms and kitchen beige, bedrooms soft green and a putty color. Interestingly, in the bedrooms they had a lighter color on the wall in the space above the picture molding but below the start of the ceiling cove. All of the woodwork trim paint ranged from a warm cream color to beige to gray. They were also into the colonial revival scheme during this era which was basically, yellow, blue, and creamy white. If you want a simple color scheme that isnt going to look to old fashioned or too out of place with the era of your apartment, I would pick a lightish neutral color for the walls, maybe something the color of soy milk, and a creamy white for the trim.
I recently painted my apt. which has some decorative molding like you are describing–though not as much I don’t think. The previous owners had all the moldings painted white and the walls a very creamy beige. It was not a good look. Several people told us to go the opposite– paint out the moldings a shade or two darker than the walls. It seemed like a bold move to me, but I found two colors that I loved. I painted huge pieces of poster board the lighter color and then painted the trim color on another board and actually cut it out and taped it over the trim so I could really visualize the effect. The dark trim actually makes the moldings recede instead of pop out.
I think definitely sticking with 2 colors–3 at the most– that are different shades of the same color is the way to go. House Beautiful is a great resource. I will post pictures of my living room soon so you can see what we did.