Help!! Country cottage living room colours

[MrsMummyBx]

Hi lovely MNers - I've been lucky enough to buy a wonderful cottage in the Yorkshire Dales which I will be running partly as a holiday let- so I want to appeal to as many tastes as possible. There's a gorgeous fireplace in the living room, and there's a dark woodstained ceiling. I'm redecorating and in two minds on colour choices- can you help me?
Option 1 - neutral on every walls- my favourite for this would be F&B skimming stone

Option 2 - a red chimney breast (a similar ish shade to the wallpaper currently there- F&B Eating Room Red with the rest of the walls a very pale colour F&B White Tie

Which do you think looks best? Pictures with my (badly) painted test colours to show the two options. Skimming stone which I would paint the whole room incl chimney breast with is on the left.

As a separate question- do you think I should paint the ceiling white? The wooden ceiling gives an authentic vibe and cosy with the fire going but arguably makes the room quite dark....

Thanks so much all!

I prefer neutral with a painted ceiling like in this pic. If you go with the red chimney breast then I'd probably leave the ceiling as is.

Go neutral, you can always add red later. First I would go neutral because the rooms will seem bigger.

I would go neutral too, I think it'll make the best of the fireplace and make the room as light as possible without having to paint over the ceiling.
It looks like a gorgeous place!

Thank you everyone. Looks like everyone has voted neutral, so that's what I will do.

@blackgrouse that's exactly the look I love, but I'm a bit scared to do it as once it's painted there's no going back! I'm sure it would look lovely though - but the wood gives it a bit of atmosphere too. Shall I just go for it and paint it???

I would definitely paint it but then I don't like dark wood. I think it would make the room look more spacious and modern but still charming.

I'd go with whichever look you like the most.

If you do paint the ceiling I don't think I'd go brilliant white, maybe a F&B white that goes with Skimming Stone, and not gloss!

We have Eating Room Red in part of our sitting room, I love the colour but it’s quite dark at night. It looks like you’ve already made your decision but Dimity is red based so goes well with red if you change your mind.

Neutral

Thank you everyone, I think I'm going to go neutral, also will brave it and paint the ceiling white.

@blackgrouse - totally agree should be perhaps a satinwood and a nice soft white rather than brilliant white.

@mrbennoffestiveroad - thank you, if I chicken out of my light colour plans, I will do a combo with dimity- I do love that colour

Is that ceiling just stained? If so I wouldn't personally paint it. I'd have it sand blasted back to the original pale wood. It's a messy job but will be worth it.

It's such a cool feature, would be a shame to paint it over.

If you're getting someone else to do the decorating I think @Bluntness100 idea of taking the wood back to the original with maybe a limed or whitewashed oiled finish would be good.

I absolutely love 'cottage green' in cute little cottages etc!

@bluntness100 @blackgrouse- it looks authentic but actually is pine tongue and groove from when the barn was converted in 1990 - just stained dark. Which is why I don't feel too bad about painting it, but it does add to the authentic feel especially with the fireplace. Unfortunately I don't think my builder will cope with stripping it and my budget won't stretch to his time doing that as I'm also doing a complete refurb of the rest of the house so I'm stuck with the slightly limited options of painting it or leaving as is...it does look nice with the fireplace to give the authentic feel, but definitely feels a bit dark and I'm aware of the ceiling if you know what I mean. I was sold on painting it and now I'm wavering!!

@civicxx do you mean F&B French grey type colour? I'm planning to do the external doors in that and the windows a cream which I need to indentify- any ideas?! Going for that Cotswold look (despite being in Yorkshire!!) - lot of people are doing that colour scheme here too now.
Talking of greens- I've a small windowless and depressing shower room which I'm going to try and jazz up- it's currently decorated in pure brilliant white and is just depressing and uninspiring- I'm not against PBW but in this particular room it's soulless. Planning to inject a bit of colour - anyone any thoughts on Cromarty F&B?

Ah, ok, then I'd just paint it white, will brighten the room considerably...

If the ceilings just 90s pine I'd def paint it, it'll look much lighter and give it a modern country look.

I have Mizzle in the kitchen which is a shade darker than Cromarty and I like it.

The picture Blackgrouse is exactly what I would go for, the dark ceiling looks very oppressive but would look stunning painted in a soft (not brilliant) white.