What would you put with red?

[sometimesKit]

Other than cream? We rent our house. The decoration is clean and professional but quite dated, the landlord has given us permission to decorate pretty much as we wish.

There's a red carpet throughout (pictured) which I doubt he would allow us to replace, even if we could afford it, so we have to make any decoration blend with that. The carpet is in the living room, dining room, hallway, stairs and landing. We've decorated the living room in red and cream and really like it but don't want the same in all the other areas. The hall, stairs and landing need doing next, there is some varnished pine cladding (!) which makes it look very dark and oppressive, I want to lighten it up.

So what would you recommend?

How about slate grey?

Try houzz.com and type in 'red carpet'. I would try to neutralize the red with rugs and pale colours. Can you paint the pine?

agree with Kate, gorgeous colour! All my walls would be grey if I didn't rent.

Stone would go or a pale gold

Thank you so much! I forgot I wrote this, I've been meaning to do it for weeks then forgetting. I love the idea of grey, would never have thought of that but the pictures look great! I will try houzz as well, pinterest only seems to bring up hunting lodge or country cottage style, neither of which is really "me".

I think we can paint the wood, I hope we can because it really is heinous. It's a double fronted house with the stairs right in the middle (and nowhere near as grand as I've just made it sound) so there is no natural light on the stairs at all, awful!

F and B'a skimming stone goes well with red. I have it our TV room and the kind and rug are red. I have just painted my kitchen Little Greene Slaked Lime and was thinking that red somewhere in the room would look good, too.

I had the same bother - while house red carpet.

I found a lovely black and cream border with the odd red flower in. Did the walls coordinating creams and red accessories.

For the pine woodwork, invest in a Zinsser primer and you won't have to sand. Two coats of primer and two coats of water based satinwood. They dry quickly and there's no strong smell.

Are you sure you don't want emerald green with the red carpet OP? The people we bought our house from had that striking combination!

As tempting as emerald green sounds fudge I think I will pass!

I have attached a picture of the hideous woodwork, thank you for the primer tip! That's the sort of stuff I need. The wallpaper above the wood is a very stylish orange with metallic gold stripes...

Gosh - that's a mid-century DIY disaster, isn't it? Once you've toned that down, it will look so different. The wood will have a shaker feel and satinwood paint is available in lots of colours or you can have it custom mixed at a Johnstone's, Dulux centre or Valspar, etc.

Are you sure you don't want emerald green? I think they left us some paint for touching up...