What colour to paint this hallway? (photos)

[kitchenplans]

We're coming to the end of an extension and I've got decision fatigue!

We've had a new front door put in and the hallway freshly plastered, and now I have to decide on what colour to paint it.

Our old door was a cheap UPC one which was almost entirely glass. Our new composite door is absolutely gorgeous, but it has cut out a lot of the light compared to the old one.

I tend to favour darker colours (kitchen is F&B Bancha, dining room F&B Stiffkey Blue, sitting room is creamy walls but with dark bottle green sofas,) but I'm a bit thrown by how dark the hallway looks now. I know it will get lighter once the ceiling is painted white and the plaster has dried.

Flooring will be oak Amtico herringbone (mixture of Canopy Oak and Eden Oak). We're keeping the greigy stair carpet. We previously had Egyptian Cotton, which is dull and I'd quite like something more interesting. Taste veers more towards period than modern.

Anyone got any suggestions for paint colours? I guess I'm looking for something that is strong, but won't suck the light. I'm open to any colour as long as it looks OK with the existing flooring and the Amtico.

Dunelm Warm Sand is glorious!
Strong but not light sucking - cheaper and fantastic quality.

I’d go for a strong but bright yellow. A rich colour but uplifting. This is Little Greene’s Mister David. Will go well with your greige carpet.

We went for an actual gold/metallic paint in our hallway. The builders thought we were nuts but it's lovely - a deep but neutral colour, with lots of light.

So it turns out that now the plaster has dried out, and the floor is down, that the hallway is nowhere near as dark as I'd feared!

I tried out some yellow testers, but I don't think it works with the flooring. So back to the drawing board on colours.

Now I might be going slightly crazy from constantly living in a building site, but does the existing dried plaster colour look quite good? I think I'm veering towards something in the salmon pink/peachy/light orange quite of range now! I'm thinking either F&B setting plaster or F&B faded terracotta as a starting point. Any thoughts?

i was going to suggest rich rather than dark so those yellows are good..
also Hay....its slightly less mustard...my others could be Greens
cooking apple is lovely and fresh

little greene - canton is a warm peacock/teal.....if you fancy something different!
mirrors and lighting can really lift..

I like the idea of using the plaster colour. See also fresh plaster by Dulux.

Like you our hallway suffers from lack of light at times but have kids in the house that trail their fingers down the wall when descending the stairs meant light walls looked grubby after a while. I went for this paper in the end..its light but add lot of colour and hides all the fingerprints!! (its only on the one wall, the rest are painted a pale dove grey

Hiya, what colour did you go with in the end? I agree the plaster looks good!!

What did you go for OP?

Oh blimey! Blast from the past! I went with F&B Setting Plaster. It looks great, and not dark at all

Lovely choice! Have a similar hallway and going back and forth to either paint or wallpaper.

Great choice @kitchenplans! We painted the bathroom at our last house in Setting Plaster estate emulsion and wanted something along the same lines for the hall at our new Georgian cottage. However we felt the coverage of F&B wasn't that great, so opted for Edward Bulmer Jonquil which is a very similar colour but EB goes on so much better imo.

@LibertyLily im thinking of using Jonquil the palest version on the top part of my hall/landings including the ceilings & quite fancy a dark teal on the bottom half (Victorian house has the original dado rail) upstairs is quite light downstairs narrow hallway which is dark though any pointers for the teal or other colour suggestions thank you.
apologies op for hijacking thread.

@dontcallmelen that sounds lovely!

I think Little Greene have some options -previously we've used both 'Tea with Florence' and 'Canton' plus there's also 'Harley Green' and 'Fray' which I haven't tried. We've used a lot of Craig & Rose 'French Turquoise' in the past and currently have Farrow & Ball 'Vardo' in our tv room, although most of these are more turquoise than teal!

Thank you @LibertyLily i shall have a look at your suggestions, i get an idea in my head then get frustrated when i cant find what i have visualised i do it all the time no wonder it takes me forever making a decision.

Warm mocha.

I would go for the brighter/lighter colours as I don't like darker shades taking up a lot of space in general. You can try out different options in interior planning apps like this one or similar just to see which one would look and feel better for you. A lighter shade of grey or brown would look nice, not too bright yet not too dark imo.

The OP already updated the thread, saying she went with F&B Setting Plaster.

I’ve been thinking about that for our lounge as it would look great with our furniture but not sure about it. Don’t worry if you’d rather not but if you are happy to, I’d love to see a photo. There are pictures online obviously but they are witb photoshoot lighting rather than everyday house lighting

@RockingMyFiftiesNot I can share some pics of Setting Plaster in our last house if that helps. It was the bathroom, not a living space, but as it was a fairly large room with a fireplace and curtains it still gives a good idea. We colour drenched the entire room as the ceiling sloped so it was hard to chose where one colour ended and the other began, iyswim? It was an east-facing room and I always felt the colour was a bit washed out.

In our current house we've just painted the hallway in Jonquil from Edward Bulmer. It's a similar colour to Setting Plaster, but goes on much better than Farrow & Ball.

And here's a couple of the Jonquil....

I'm the OP, so for completeness, here's that hall, 3+ years later, painted in F&B Setting Plaster.

Lovely OP looks very pretty.

That does look lovely @kitchenplans 😊

Lovely OP, thanks for sharing.

That's a fab bathroom @LibertyLily .