Colours in a dark hallway with picture and dado rails

[anniemouse]

We have a classical Edwardian/Victorian north facing hallway. I'm planning to keep the door frames, dado and picture rails white. I want to maintain the classic look but also have a modern feel to it. The hall doesn't get hardly any light to it but does have high ceilings.

I was planning on 3 colours (white for the ceiling and above picture rail, 1 for above the dado rail and another darker colour below the picture rail). However, DH thinks just keeping to 2 colours (1 for the ceiling and 1 colour for the walls, both above and below the rails) is better and will look more modern. However, if we do that, I am struggling to think of a paint colour that would be different to white but not too dark.

Our hallway looks similar to some pictures here.

We want to avoid blue (as we already have that colour scheme in some of the rooms), and we don't want to remove the picture and rails.

You might think choosing a very light, near neutral white - will brighten a hallway. But a colour with a bump of Chroma or colourfulness is what’s needed if you want to bust through the gloom.

Colours on the ceiling plane anyway can often appear somewhat darker and more greyed than the same colour in the wall. So even if still very drawn to white, consider one with slightly more colour to it than you perhaps would have first considered.

Simply White - Olympic Mountains - Hardwick White

I like your colours Colette100.

So would you stick to the three colours? Or is it better to have the ceiling and above picture rail = simply white, the middle = olympic mountains and below the dado = F&B Hardwick white?

Or should I just stick to two colours only. Eg ceiling and above picture rail = simply white, the middle and bottom of dado rail = olympic mountains?

Why not start a Pinterest board, just saving hallways you like? At first not worrying exactly what draws you to them. Then review them once you have saved a number. You might be surprised that you are repeatedly drawn to one style of incorporating colour rather than two.

One more contemporary look for a traditional home’s hallway is to use less colours - only altering the sheen. This way interest comes via different tonal values rather than different colours.

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Use of tone

Hardwick white below dado.

I personally would do the whole lot the same colour, except the ceiling. Skirting, walls, dado and coving all the same. I just did this in my new kitchen in a dark berry black and it made the room look huge.

Following because I'm planning on doing something very similar with my similar 1930s hallway and stairs this month.

Tonal light play. Same colour - different sheens

Still beautiful - just more traditional - darker on lower walls, lighter above

Neptune silver birch on the walls, dado and everything below keep white.

I think the most modern thing to do is to paint woodwork and walls the same colour. Strips of white skirting board, dado rail and picture rail with a white roof plus another colour or two on the walls will break up and mark the boundaries of the space making it seem smaller and narrower than it actually is.

I like all one colour as I find it calming.
However painting up to the dado rail one colour (darker colour) and then another colour (a white) up and over the ceiling would look great too. I think would add interest without being fussy.

Include the dado rail in the darker colour (clarification).

We've just done a similar dark hall and used white on the ceiling and down to the dado rail and then a warmer cream below - all in a scrubbable paint. We've grouped black and white photos on the walls and are very happy with the result.