I have a dining room (aprox 7ft by 15ft) Which has no window just a double width doorway to the kitchen(with no doors) and doorway to hall so light is limited. Any suggestions on decor? What colours best? what about a dado rail? At the moment its brightish yellow but its just not right!!!
Help from budding interior designers!!
- Thread starter lisap
- Start date
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The first thing to do is brighten up the ceiling with brilliant white satin emulsion.Working down from there I would use a white wallpaper with pastel colours in the design. A dado rail can also make a difference. The paper below the rail can be a contrasting colour to the one above. Try putting paint swatches together to create your individual choice.These are free from most diy stores. Carpets need to be light coloured and skirting boards either white or light beige. Hope this helps.
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You can buy vinyl wallpaper that actually has reflective type strands in it, I find very pale lilacs and blues will give the effect of the most light. Also you could try placing a mirror on the wall opposite the doors to reflect a bit more light around.
the existing yellow could be the worst problem - yellow is about the hardest colour to get right.
In the shop and working from swatches it is easy to get a yellow that tends towards the green end of the spectrum, this will make a room strangely gloomy - there is something to do with scale here yellows seem to change when the area covered gets larger.
I would always over compensate towards the orange end of the spectrum, it glows, is warmer and generaly more cheerful.
i should add that I am talking about very subtle hue differences here, the difference is only just perceptable on a small swatch - line up a whole load of yellows and try to order them from greenest to orangest to see what I mean. also be careful of choosing a colour that is tonaly dark, even yellows vary in how dull they are. a good trick here is to squint and try not to focus while you look at a selection, you will see the tonal values more clearly.
I agree with feldri that a picture rail would brighten things up signifigantly, also the line has the effect of visually widening the room, adding a chair rail with two colours can increase this effect (lighter colour to the top).
however i disagree with the choice of satin paint, I would use a good bright white matt emulsion above the dado and on the ceiling - the slight reflection that you get from satin paint is the surface bouncing light back into the room - and probably onto a darker colour. this is good if you have a window and want to spread the light around - but in your case you want the most white ambient light that you can get, so to have the ceiling glow rather than reflect would be better.
to see what i mean imagine covering the ceiling with a mirror - you would have all of the light reflected away onto the walls, so much so you could see the reflection, but a very dark ceiling.
another good trick is to use uplighters rather than a ceiling pendant light.
In the shop and working from swatches it is easy to get a yellow that tends towards the green end of the spectrum, this will make a room strangely gloomy - there is something to do with scale here yellows seem to change when the area covered gets larger.
I would always over compensate towards the orange end of the spectrum, it glows, is warmer and generaly more cheerful.
i should add that I am talking about very subtle hue differences here, the difference is only just perceptable on a small swatch - line up a whole load of yellows and try to order them from greenest to orangest to see what I mean. also be careful of choosing a colour that is tonaly dark, even yellows vary in how dull they are. a good trick here is to squint and try not to focus while you look at a selection, you will see the tonal values more clearly.
I agree with feldri that a picture rail would brighten things up signifigantly, also the line has the effect of visually widening the room, adding a chair rail with two colours can increase this effect (lighter colour to the top).
however i disagree with the choice of satin paint, I would use a good bright white matt emulsion above the dado and on the ceiling - the slight reflection that you get from satin paint is the surface bouncing light back into the room - and probably onto a darker colour. this is good if you have a window and want to spread the light around - but in your case you want the most white ambient light that you can get, so to have the ceiling glow rather than reflect would be better.
to see what i mean imagine covering the ceiling with a mirror - you would have all of the light reflected away onto the walls, so much so you could see the reflection, but a very dark ceiling.
another good trick is to use uplighters rather than a ceiling pendant light.
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