Home Candy: Dark Walls
As much as I love the stark white look of Scandinavian design, there’s something very appealling about dark paint. Perhaps I’m intrigued by the obvious courage behind the choice – dark colors can be intimidating (What if it makes my room feel small? Will it be a nightmare to paint over?).
Done well, it can be almost majestic. Behold:
{Sources: Navy – Rue Magazine, Hunter Green – Bellinter House in County Meath, Ireland from the Mr and Mrs Smith Boutique Hotel Collection Book, Gallery Wall – Small Space Style}
This black wall from Loftenberg features paneling to give it depth and texture:
I love the idea of navy or hunter green in a bedroom – it seems like it would be nice and dark for sleeping. Look at this lovely bedroom from Dwell Studio:
Dark colors can also be “lightened” via the other elements in the room. Look how bright these two rooms look with white cabinets and bedding to offset the dark blues:
{Sources: Bedroom: Pink Paper Peonies, Kitchen: simplypi}
Overall, success would depend on the lighting (look at those fabulous windows in the hunter green living room!). While I haven’t gone this dark in my home (we have one purple wall, but it came that way), we do have the floor-to-ceiling windows that could make it work.
The green picture is of Bellinter House in County Meath, Ireland from the Mr and Mrs Smith Boutique Hotel Collection book, which you can see here: http://allthebest2007.blogspot.com/2009/01/new-partnership-giveaway.html
I learned a secret technique when I started using Pinterest — save the picture to your desktop, then drag it onto the images.google.com page to search the Internet and find the original source
Magic! Thank you! I HATE when I can’t find the source!
Our bedroom is that green!
I love dark colors, especially blues and greens. We went with a pretty rich teal for our living room/kitchen, and then various shades of blue for the eaves, the hallway, and the office.
After years of living in rental properties with white and off-white walls, we went crazy on this place!
I love that green! Green is my favorite color (though, not the light green I painted my bathroom – that will have to be changed).
It is funny how quickly you want to paint once you are able!
Half of our bedroom walls are a gray-blue (Eeyore, actually), alternating with Heffalump purple. It was originally yellow, which was just much too bright and too much for a bedroom (I didn’t like the shade, either).
Nothing’s much darker than that, but I could see doing our bedroom something darker someday. It’s a big room so it wouldn’t feel small even with darker walls.
Someday, we’re going to repaint the upstairs hall — it’s currently a boring blah brown the same color as the carpet. Might be a good place for a bold but dark color.
Also, it’s sort of crazy how much my work laptop graphics card/monitor sucks — I could NOT see the paneling on that wall at work. It looks totally different here!
Haha. Yep, the panels make that wall!
Love that you call the color “Eeyore!” Our bedroom is light grey (with green in the “desk nook area”)
Um (blush) it actually IS Eeyore … Disney makes paint colors for Behr. And I love Eeyore.
So when we saw their palette, we just had to use it.
Awesome. Eeyore and Tigger were my favorites (but Tigger paint would be intense).
Hah, yeah. We almost painted our kitchen Donald Duck Orange, but decided to go with something a bit more muted, instead.
LOVE the dark walls! just wish I had enough guts to do it!
Same! They can be daunting!
so stunning! everything about that last image speaks to me.
I do love that blue!