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Dear Annie,
I have a cream-background wallpaper in the dining room and have painted the trim with the same [cream]: Benjamin Moore Mystic Beige 2162-60. I painted the wall below the chair rail a deep red (Ralph Lauren's Nobleman VM74), which picks up color in the wallpaper and drapes.


The wallpaper is old, probably vintage 1967 from the year the house was built, but it's in great shape and my family all voted to keep it. I'm painting everything else around in an attempt to rejuvenate the room. The living room, visible in the cream molding photo, is painted Benjamin Moore Atrium white with bright white trim.


What do I do with the ceiling and the crown molding? They are both a bright white and it looks odd. Should I paint the crown the same creamy trim color and the ceiling white? Both the cream? All the rest of the ceilings, crown and trim in adjoining rooms are bright white. Thanks for the tips and I love the blog.
-Dale Glass, Potomac, MD


Dear Dale: Wallpaper is back in a big way - especially in dining rooms - so your question is quite timely.

The short, easy answer is CREAM: go with your instincts and paint the crown moulding the Mystic Beige in the semi-gloss finish, and paint the ceiling the same color in a flat finish.

But that's not a very bossy answer, is it? Tasteful, yes. Imaginative, not hardly.

Here's why I couldn't let go of your question. If you and your family are bold enough to keep wallpaper from 1967, I think you should set it off a bit more. The deep red wainscoting is perfectly nice, but paired with the wallpaper - and the alluded-to drapes - I'm getting an 80's vibe.


I don't think the wallpaper is kitschy enough go the ironic route...by, say, painting the wall below the chair rail an outrageous contrasty color like hot pink, or a bronze metallic. Judging from the sliver of living room we glimpse in one of your photographs, that's not how you roll anyway.

So a better route would be to channel our inner Brits and ask ourselves, WWF&BD? (What Would Farrow & Ball Do?)

What if we painted all of the trim a greyish blue (Oval Room Blue #85) and the wall below the chair rail a greenish grey (Pigeon #25)? Neither color would match the wallpaper exactly; these are intentionally more muted.


So what would happen? I'll tell you what would happen. Interesting but elegant gorgeousness, that's what would happen. (And you could keep the ceiling cream.)

I know you just finished washing the cranberry paint out of your brushes, but if the wallpaper survives another year, maybe you'll be ready for a new approach next Thanksgiving.

(Some people are weird that way, repainting their rooms all the time. No one *I* know, but I'm pretty sure I read it somewhere...)

The '80s living room photo is from Maria Killam's fantastic blog, Colour Me Happy.

It's official: I now love my office.

The Beacon Hill drapes of living room fame finally have been paired a wall color that does them justice: Benjamin Moore's 2052-70 Ice Blue. In bossy color's world headquarters, the drapes are slightly edgy, not frumpy. They look tall and proud, not puffy and excessive. They're fresh, not sickly.


Benjamin Moore was kind enough to mention my office painting project on its Facebook page. But the first several comments were along the lines of, "Brrr! Too cold!" Not an enthusiastic response to the wall color initally.

But I'm thrilled to report that in real life, the room is anything but cold. Counterintuitive, perhaps, because, the wall color is called Ice Blue, and we all know that green is a cool color...

But it's a yellowish green. And the walls have just enough turquoise in them - not grey - to make them just a teeny tiny bit tropical. And the floor is glowing orange heart of pine; very warm. AND the room faces south and gets so much sun that I sometimes had to wear sunglasses inside before the shades were installed. So, cold it is not.


The wall color was a bit of an experiment (better to goof around in my own house than in my clients'), but the delightful surprise is that it's kind of invigorating. I feel focused in this room.

A bluish grey - like that in my bedroom, Benjamin Moore's 1646 Lookout Point - would have been cooler, and more serene. Lovely for my bedroom, but not the effect I wanted in my office.


A side note to this project is that I used Benjamin Moore's Aura paint, as I did with my my daughters' bedroom in the spring...but as I mentioned earlier, this time I experienced an odd technical difficulty. As the day wore on, the roller seemed to pick up little "crumbs" of paint (for lack of a better word), and by the end, I had to smudge them off with my fingers as I went. It was really annoying.


But this didn't happen to me in the spring, so what gives?

Benjamin Moore's Jim Rayball was on the case immediately and invited me to tell him more about the problem so he could weigh in thoroughly and thoughtfully. But surprise surprise, I got sidetracked by my super fun client projects (that's not ironic; they ARE fun) and didn't get back to him.

I did, however, remember to ask my best painter about this when I saw him at a job site.

The bottom line: I was too slow.

Aura paint dries so fast that you need to move quickly and methodically so you don't roll over areas you just painted. In the spring, by myself, I was a madwoman: I had 2 days, and by God that room was going to be DONE.

But in my office, I had help in the form of my father and brother...we were a lot more leisurely. I'd pick up where someone left off...we'd take a little break...where did you finish, again? I'm just going to re-roll this right now...

To get the full benefit of Aura paint, my painter tells me, your technique has to be good. This doesn't mean that us mere mortals can't use it, it just means we should practice. Work quickly, get the right amount of paint on the roller, don't re-paint wet spots, let it dry completely before putting on another coat - if you even need another coat.

I'd been skeptical about that one-coat claim, but in my office, it held true. Ah, wait - I did lose my nerve and slap a primer coat on the grey wall, but everything else was one coat. And we used a single gallon for the whole room.

My painter says that only drawback to Aura paint is the price. But he said that if you're willing to pay a little extra, in his opinion it's the best paint out there. And he has no reason to fib.


As for my office's rapid decline into messiness, what can I say. I work in here.

My mind is tidy, I assure you.

Hi Annie-
I am thrilled to be writing to you because I LOVE your blog, and I finally have a BIG problem I would love your help on! We built our home two years ago, and painted our fairly large, two-story living room Ralph Lauren Reisling, and my husband and I both detest the color.


We are finally going to have the room re-painted, and would love your opinion on a color.


It looks into both our dining room...


...and kitchen, which are green, and nutmeg colored, respectfully.


I am thinking some sort of brown, and as you can tell from the pictures, my swatches are not helping me.

Can you suggest a great color that will help me tie in the dining room and living room together? We will be putting a leather sofa in the living room, and it gets bright morning light.

I would greatly appreciate your expert opinion!! Thank you so much!
- Stefanie Bradshaw, Louisville, KY


Dear Stephanie:
Ahhh, Louisville. A city that is near and dear to my heart...when my husband and I were engaged, I visited him in Louisville, where he was working on a campaign. We stayed at the utterly charming Seelbach Hotel,


and a big wedding was happening there...the lieutenant governor and Miss Kentucky? Something like that. Royalty. Anyway, it was one of my favorite weekends of all time. It was there that I also met my future right hand at the Smithsonian, who sealed his fate by saying, upon meeting me, "I love your shoes!" Awesome town.

But back to your living room. BROWN IS WRONG. I understand the impulse to go darker after that anemic yellow (Ralph, don't go screwing up my favorite color, ok?), but darker is simply not consistent with the architectural intent of this soaring space.

Light, airy, open...these are the effects you want to preserve. Especially because the side rooms (the dining room and kitchen) are rich in color, let's keep the living room light and neutral. I know it sounds like a cop-out, but it's the space, not the color, that needs to do the talking here.

Try to match the kitchen cabinets, but keep yellow out of it. This might mean you're looking at the very lightest taupes your paint manufacturer has to offer. In Benjamin Moore, take a look at Benjamin Moore's OC-35 Spanish White, shown on the innermost picture frame moulding below, or good old OC-17 White Dove, which is outside the picture frame moulding.

Either of them should look soft but NOT yellow; if it does, reject it. (Its feelings won't be hurt, I promise.)



In any other paint line, pick up swatches that look like your kitchen cabinets and see what works.

If it were me, and I had a free weekend (or a free few hundred bucks to pay someone else to do it), I'd also paint my banister and newel posts high-gloss black to emphasize the contrast between them and the walls. (Aren't the balusters black wrought iron?) But that's me.

I'd probably also change the ceiling fan to something white or silver so it doesn't draw attention to itself. But spend your time - and your money - on the walls first, and then see how you feel.

Thanks for the great question, Stephanie. This may not sound like an inspiring solution, but I guarantee you'll love the space when you banish the yellow. Keep us posted!

"Whites" photo from decorati.com, courtesy of xJavierx's photostream on Flickr.

A three-day weekend loomed, and bossy color's world headquarters was in desperate need of an overhaul. This may be hard to follow, but stay with me...

It all started with the living room drapes. Sigh.


There they are, on the left. I've had a love/hate relationship with these drapes ever since I bought them 4 years ago. Objectively, I love them. In this room, I never really made them work.

But that's another story.

Right now, all you need to know is that I finally decided to have these lovely, oversized drapes cut down into into two pairs for my office. It's happening as we speak. I'm really excited about it.

For those to work, though, I needed a new wall color. Here's where we started:


(Oh my gosh - here's a BEFORE before picture, from right when we moved in, I'd forgotten about that oranger-than-thou accent wall. It didn't last long.)



Back to the recent before -


Hard to believe this is where the magic happens, isn't it? Embarrassing.


I wanted a paint color that would make that wonderful light green fabric - Beacon Hill's Florian, color Ming - look a little edgy. I've been loving the whole Robin's egg blue color craze, so I tested some of those.

Benjamin Moore's 2052-70 Ice blue won out. It was between that and 2051-60 Bird's Egg, but I thought the lighter color ultimately would be better with the drapes. Let's hope.

Anyway, no need to depend on the kindness of strangers when family's coming into town :) Here's my dad, handy with the tape...


...and my brother James (er, Jimmy Riot)...


And me, of course...


Yeah, yeah. Just get me another Diet Coke, wouldja?


Aaaaannnnd the reveal. The close-to-finished product, bossy color's new and improved world headquarters, which willl be even MORE improved by the installation of the drapes in a few weeks.



Aahh. The office will never be this tidy again, so please take a good long look.


And stay tuned.


Note, added 10/14/09: I used Aura paint for this project and had, for the first time, an odd experience with little paint "crumbs" - dried flecks of paint getting caught in the roller and making it onto the walls. Odd. I asked about it on Benjamin Moore's Facebook page, so I'll see what they say...

The Gentle Reader who sent in the previous question also wondered about the colors in her guest bedroom and bath suite...

Annie - The guest bathroom is near the guest bedroom and although I wanted it to harmonize, I also wanted a little more drama for this bathroom.

The pedestal sink, water closet, tub and tile in this bathroom are white and the tile surrounding the tub goes all the way to the ceiling. My color choice (the wallpaper I wanted was discontinued) is Ben Moore's graphite (1603)...Should the ceiling be the same color or a shade of gray?

The nearby guest bedroom is painted Ben Moore's linen white (probably not a strong enough color or even right shade for the rest of the house). Bedding is a red oriental toile on a creamy white background.
















Dear Andrea: Ok, are you sitting down? Ready? I LIKE the Graphite paint in the bathroom! I hope my color colleagues out there will weigh in, because I'm sure there are reasons not to do it. But I like the high contrast.

Do NOT, however, paint the ceiling Graphite. Too dark. Waaaaayyy too dark.

If you're up for something spectacular - to match the high drama of the Graphite and white - paint the ceiling a really intense, bold color...a chartreuse, for example. Benj. Moore's Flower Power 398 is an excellent one.

(The red banding on the shower curtain did not escape my notice, btw. I like it.)


If you're still speaking to me, let's turn to the adjoining bedroom. (We would have started there if the bathroom weren't already painted.)


I agree that the 912 Linen White doesn't do much for the room. We've established that you're keeping the Graphite bathroom, so what about a light WARM grey on the walls in here? HC-172 Revere Pewter could be perfect; it's one of my all-time favorite colors. It's sophisticated and versatile - and much greyer than the swatch at right appears. It would work with the oatmeal wall-to-wall carpeting and the bathroom colors.


This recommendation is made with the assumption that you're NOT open to using a lighter chartreuse on the walls in here.

If I'm mistaken, please call me immediately.