Open plan lounge & dining room - how to paint & lighting?

[roamingcat]

Hi all,

Looking for some help as we're due to get our open plan living room and dining room repainted and everyone here has good taste.

Our house is a Victorian terrace and downstairs we have an open plan living room and dining room which also has the stairs in (to the left of the room, not as a divider in the middle). The whole thing is currently painted an awful shade of dark beige which makes it look very dreary given the dining room part only has one window (which doesn't get much natural light) and the hallway upstairs has no windows! We have two chimney breasts (one in each 'room'), the living room one has a log burner and the dining room one has been boxed in. I've sometimes seen it where it's open plan but they still have a bit of the wall built out inbetween the rooms which makes a natural divider but we don't have that. Looking for a paint colour that will make the room look nice and cosy and bright but also go with a pale duck egg blue sofa we have.

We're also going to replace the lighting - it's currently two matching chandeliers which are way too bright so we never turn them on! Looking for any suggestions of lighting you've used in an open plan downstairs which has given a nice ambient glow and isn't too harsh.

Thank you!!

You could put wall lights in, overhead lighting in a living room is too much imo. We use a lot of lamps.

As for paint colour I had Dulux Mellow Mocha with duck egg cushions in my Victorian living room.

by open plan do you mean that wall have been removed but the rooms in essence still exist?

@greenacrylicpaint Yes exactly this! There used to be a wall dividing the living room and dining room but this was removed by a previous owner so you enter the house through a tiny entryway with a door and then go into one big room which has the living room to the front and the dining room to the back.

@PurBal wall lights are a good suggestion. We may struggle with placement we we have a few floor to ceiling cabinets/bookshelves but possibly on the wall behind the sofa could work. I’ll look this colour up too! Thank you.

We used shelving with slats of wood to create a divider that still allowed light to the darker part of our living room. I liked the slatted divider look but the shelving was easier to DIY, plus we got extra storage. No advice on lighting as it’s all spotlights, but with a dimmer and a few lamps.

This is a much fancier version pictured.

You can add wall lights to bookcases, or more simply, place some small table lamps inside the bookcase. An electrician can connect your table and floor lamps to 5 amp sockets that connect to a light switch, so when you enter a room, you can switch on/off all your table and floor lamps.