I have a small North-facing sitting room. There are bay windows, so it's not as though there is no light, but there is a tree in front of the house, so it's the sort of room where for 9 months of the year, it feels dark even in the middle of the day. The room leads directly into the south-facing kitchen which is currrently being extended to make a warm, sunny kitchen/diner. Once the extension is finished, I want to repaint the sitting room.
At the moment it is pale, with Dulux Timeless on the walls and the wood in brilliant white. But with no real sunshine, the pale walls look sort of dull and flat, and I would really like the room to look warm and cosy, and look good by lamplight.
The kitchen/diner will be decorated in off-white and dark teal with bits of gold and mustardy yellow. The cloakroom just outside the sitting room will have this wallpaper:
www.grahambrown.com/uk/product/50-808/tour-de-yorkshire-multi
Our overall style is mid-century influenced with quite a lot of art and books on the walls. The floor is bamboo. The sofa is brown leather.
The room is used mostly for things like watching TV, using the computer, huddling up with a hot water bottle on cold winter nights, reading and listening to music, children doing headstands on the sofa and building dens and marble runs. Arts and crafts, board games, lazing in the sunshine and things requiring bright light all happen in the kitchen/diner. Lego might be built in either room.
Options I am thinking of are:
a) Paint the room a warm off-white with a deep yellow wood and a lot of yellow in the soft furnishings.
b) Paint the walls a fairly deep yellow with white wood, and white bookshelves.
c) Paint the walls a warm but less intense yellow (maybe a deep cream) with a more dramatic shade on window frames, doors and skirting boards.
d) Keep everything off-white and get a load of yellow accessories.
e) something I haven't thought of yet.
Which option should I go for, and which shades of paint should I choose?