Picture rails and docor

[GreenFirefly]

So we're going to sort out the front room of our Victorian/Edwardian terrace. We plan to put picture rails back in and probably have different colours above and below. Traditionally the darker colour tends to be at the bottom but I'm worried that the room will then be too dark, although it's south facing there's a huge tree outside which blocks a lot of light. I'm wondering about the lighter colour on the bottom and darker at the top, or would it just look 'top heavy' and wrong? The colour scheme will be deep red, with possibly cream, magnolia, duck egg blue (these colours are in curtains that I've already made). The carpet will be changed as well, (currently dark) but I don't want that too light with two young children spilling drinks on it regularly (and me with red wine).

It's usual to paint the wall above the picture rail the same colour as the ceiling, typically matt pbw, but occasionally tobacco-tar brown.

It certainly won't be tobacco brown. There's traditional, and then there's taking it too far :D

I always thought that above the picture rails was always white along with the ceiling and then the walls a colour of choice... but I have seen more and more people painting above the picture rail either the same colour as the walls, or a slightly different shade along with the ceilings
I really think it's about personal choice
Also how big the room is? The style of the rest of the house? Furniture etc
Are you on instagram? There's loads of restoration accounts on there and they all have done something abit different!
We are just about to move house into an Edwardian with high ceilings and pictures rails and I can't wait to experiment
Also look on Pinterest for inspiration

IMO a larger Edwardian home with high ceilings looks odd if the drops are wall-coloured

I would be worried that a dark colour above the picture rail would pull the ceiling down and make the room look smaller, but I could very well be wrong.
I have a mid grey (of course) under the picture rail and white above, not too dark imo.
The rooms we haven't painted yet are cream below and white above, but they'll probably mostly change to more grey and white because it turns out I am a dedicated follower of fashion.

Too dark? Just choose a colour darker than white. There is no law that says you have to have x colour. In our living room we have white on the ceiling and frieze and a milky coffee colour below with a stronger colour in the inglenook.

I think that painting above the picture rail to match the ceiling makes the ceiling look higher and the room bigger and brighter.

Thanks everyone. You're right - it doesn't have to be a bold / dark colour on the main part of the wall, I'd somehow got into my head that it would be. I love that Piglet John thinks it's a larger Edwardian home. It's a 3 bed terrace; the ceilings are slightly higher than a modern house, but not excessively. Whatever we do it's going to be better than the hangover inducing 1980s patterned paper that's there at the moment

I saw lovely idea on farrow And ball, with all painted same colour like grey with teeny variation.looked lovely.