# What color to use...RED everywhere!



## goodgal (Sep 15, 2009)

The only way to get feedback is to post a link to the property in question. It is a rental property I am updating. Lots of issues...ceiling is stained wood but want to keep if possible then there is red in too much of the main floor. I wondered how a color like SW Great green would look in the TV/fireplace room to break it up without looking like Christmas. Thought about yellow but think the ceiling has so much gold in it that yellow would be too much. The green would match what is in some of the chairs in adjoining room. Please advise! I don't want to spend tons of money so paint is the cheaper way to go vs buying new furniture!
***link removed*** post pictures HERE if you have questions.


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## user1007 (Sep 23, 2009)

Are you really looking for color help or trying to sell or rent this property? :huh:


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## creeper (Mar 11, 2011)

sdsester said:


> Are you really looking for color help or trying to sell or rent this property? :huh:


THey have already picked their colours carefully. Clearly, the place has been staged and this person is not looking for decorating help.


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## goodgal (Sep 15, 2009)

creeper said:


> THey have already picked their colours carefully. Clearly, the place has been staged and this person is not looking for decorating help.


If you look on the rental history..it is completely rented through October so I promise I really need help with colors. The pic was taken a few years ago prior to the rental season so of course it looks perfect! But it needs updating. In fact the exterior is also being changed to a different color. I doubt most people live near this area. I really want advice and thus far I have had one person say get rid of all the red but at this point I want to change the one room with the TV. Any help appreciated!


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## creeper (Mar 11, 2011)

Well then my apologies. Your place looks so nice that I hope you can see that it was easy to make that mistake. If you were selling I'd suggest beige and more beige, Boring but neutral to appeal to the masses. I agree..too much red

I had difficulty convincing a client to get rid of the hunter green kitchen and red living/dining rm. Hot market in a hot neighourhood. Showing after showing after showing. She went away for a week and I got her husband to paint beige. Sold it the next showing.

The room with the corner windows and the two chairs (ocean view?) might look nice with a very pale blue to bring the outside in. Personally I'm a big fan of grey. Some shades look very sophisticated.


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## user1007 (Sep 23, 2009)

My apologies too!

I worry that going beige, given I assume the furniture stays and you have color flow issues from the other red rooms. How about transitioning into calming blue green and/or blue violet tints? They could be as dark or light as you wanted. Hunter green like you mentioned will be too stark.


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## goodgal (Sep 15, 2009)

sounds like the green should not be an option. On the color wheel yellow goes with red and that might lighten up the room if not too golden of a yellow. I even thought maybe SW Nomadic desert or a kahaki color since red & khaki go together usually. Thanks for the suggestions!


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## user1007 (Sep 23, 2009)

If you introduce yellow from the color wheel you will be on your way to a triadic color scheme if you add blue or an analogous one if you add orange. You actually have some orange in the ceiling and in the red-orange furnishings. Khaki leaning toward orange could work. Triadic colors are those that form an equilateral triangle on a color wheel---red, yellow and blue for example. Analogous colors are those next to each other on the color wheel. I was taking you down one side of the wheel and your thinking in oranges and yellows just goes the other direction. Khaki as a tint of one of the oranges should work well. 

A color's compliment is directly across from it on a color wheel and complimentary colors cancel each other out visually. Or so the color theory goes. It is why we can tolerate Holiday colors in such pure saturations. 

A popular approach in design is to use split compliments. Split compliments are the colors to either side of the compliment. In this case they would be blue-green and yellow-green.

Here is a red anchored color wheel with enhanced color saturation for reference.


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## user1007 (Sep 23, 2009)

I abstracted an analogous color down the orange and yellow side of the color wheel shown and tinted it to a khaki color for you and then built a blend between the red and that khaki tint with lots of noise added to give you an idea of other colors that might work for accessories. Even though my own preference would be something different I think with the coolness of the water outside this color scheme could be very, very nice and even spectacular. 

If any of these colors work for you, all you have to do is drag a pixel grabber over them to get the RGB codes. My color tools have them but picpick is a free set of great utilities that has an easy to use pixel grabber (and other things you may find handy). Then go to www.easyrgb.com. Enter the RGB codes. Select a major paint manufacturer color collection and the system will kick out the names and codes of the four closest color matches. 

Of course when viewing color on a computer monitor you should calibrate it to around 6500K so everybody is on the same page. This is the industry standard color temperature for viewing color. There is an automatic option for this in your settings menu (Windows machines). Easy RGB will offer you an option to calibrate on a per session basis. Good luck!


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## goodgal (Sep 15, 2009)

Impressive amount of data about color!Thanks:thumbsup: The red is a difficult red because it is a ming red ( blue/red vs a orange/red) A friend of mine suggested a few weeks ago that I do an equally intense blue in the sitting area but I think a neutral might be better. I have had so many diverse ideas that I don't know which way to go. It could be great or a disaster and it rents very well as is but it has been 5 years since any updating.There is a gold fleck in the red sofas. Hard to see in the pics but in real life obvious. Greens are in upholstered furniture & pillows in adjoining rooms. If I had an unlimited budget, which I don't; I'd start all over and paint that ceiling cream(but very expensive to remove/prep the polyurethane I'm told) then I'd do blues and greens in beachy colors. The original owner was a designer who was inspired by the british colonial decor/heavy west indies, she just went crazy with the red!

Looking at Sherwin Williams color fan deck. Woder how kilim beige or nomadic desert would look in that room. The only drawback is the two chairs across from the red sofas that are tan brown.


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## klmeenan (Apr 28, 2011)

That beige by SW is a great color to use. It will definitely help tone down red. You definitely want to stay away from green as it will look like Christmas.


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