Design help in my living room please

[rebl]

We're about to do our living room. We intend to be here for a good few years (like well over 10 yrs) so we're not looking for a neutral look that will appeal to everyone for selling. We've chosen a beautiful wall paper that is very neutral (silvery leaf pattern). I overall want green in the living room. We have a square room, fireplace with breast in the middle. Sofa on oposite wall, tv to right of fire place. Alcoves left and right of the chimney breast. Room gets morning sun only. We also have a large picture that we want on the chimney breast and it will take up a large amount of it.

Because of hte picture we are wanting to put the paper in the alcoves and then paint the rest of the room a shade or shades of green. This is where we get stuck. Do we go with a middling shade all over, light all over, different shades on chimney breast compared with rest of the walls?

Can you tell, we're not good at this ?! Please help .

Green is, IME, a difficult colour for decorations. Green light doesn't make people look very well. So can you rethink this and make it a light warm grey, perhaps? That would enable you to keep the silvery leaf pattern paper you have fallen for.

Thank you bonsoir. I really like green though . Maybe I should rethink. Grey sounds boring to me but I'll go back to B&Q and get some sample pots and see what it looks like. I don't want to get this wrong, its our living room, so everyone will see it. We've owned a house for 8 years and never decorated a living room!!! Just put up with whats there in the old house but this one we want it done to our taste so doing it straight away.

I like green too! It's just that you need to remember that whatever colour you choose will cast a light on the room and on the people in it.

Can you not have a green velvet sofa (for example)?

I think paler greens tend to look a bit bathroomy. A really deep green might work if it was an adults-only type living room that was used mostly in the evening.

I love green too but have never had it on a wall - the only green shade I have ever considered is a duck-egg type of thing....

What sort of style will you be decorating in? Anna's suggestion of a green velvet sofa would be fab in a traditional style. Although my house is Edwardian my rooms are decorated in more modern style - I have a dark grey boxy sofa with a fairly bright green throw & cushions. Also have a (darker) green rug and the lampshade has green in it too.

This room also gets morning sun only - I have used a sort of creamy grey on the walls - think it's Bleached Lichen by Dulex. It looks really great in this room

I agree, DecorHate, that a really deep bronze green might work in an evening-only sort of room. You would have to work very hard to get the lighting right.

Our dining room was a mid green when we moved in. We repainted it really light grey with an ever so slightly darker grey on the chimney breast. I think it works better than the green which was a bit ... can't describe it but kind of sterile. It made me think of a dentist's waiting room!

You could definitely use a warm toned grey and then add quite bright/warm vivid greens in your soft furnishings. Love the idea of a green velvet sofa.

Totally unrelated, but every time I see Bonsoir referred to as Anna, I hear Ute Lempe's voice in my head singing the phrase 'nicht wahr, Anna? Ja, Anna' from Kurt Weil's 7 Deadly sins.

Just thought I'd share that.

More relevantly, I like the idea of a green velvet sofa.

The room will ultimately be an adult only space, used only in the evenings.

I love the idea of the green velvet sofa but sadly finances don't allow .

I don't know, I was thinking of a warm, dark green rather than a crisp apple / mint green. I guess the lighting could be difficult.

Never made it to B&Q today, weather was too good so was in the garden which is another massive on going project. Maybe tomorrow as its started raining now and i htink its set to be wet tomorrow. I will get some warmer grey paints and have another look at the warm greens.

Grendelsmum - my DP's surname is Weil...!

What is your sitting room furniture like? That will help us with suggestions. Are you going to have new curtains?

Dulux dusted moss comes in 5 shades and is a green grey and really lovely against white

I agree, noddyholder, that grey against white is an immensely elegant backdrop to a room. Many sorts of furnishings will go with such a backdrop, which is useful if you are not starting from scratch completely and will have to wait a while to replace your sofa - which is of course what normally happens.

Noddy, could you have a look at my thread about bedroom lighting further down? No-one has made any suggestions yet!

Thanks

Bonsoir - in that case, you definitely have to listen to the songs if you haven't before!

What sorts of colours are in the painting, Rebl?

Was looking at overtly olive maybe (but this is on the computer now, not in reality)?

Our sofa and armchair are deep red. Curtains need to be bought / made (currently beige though). Carpet is sort of tan colour but is grim and is going to be replaced as well. Fireplace is going to be replaced with a solid oak surround with black, cast iron fire and either black granite or slate hearth (not decided yet). We also have oak tv stand, a large oak bookcase and a very dark wood upright piano. The piano is long term not going to be in the living room.

The picture is a stormy seascape, watercolour. Alot of browns / bronze / yellow in it. Has an overall green tinge to it (hence why we've gone for green). It is large and takes up the whole width of the fire breast and a fair bit of the height (its landscape orientation).

This is the wall paper.

www.grahambrown.com/uk/product/17841/Sophia/2

The dusted moss would look great with that paper.I would go for a huge plain drum lampshade in your bedroom as they have impact buit don't date.I like the G anbd g bird one but you may get bored with it

Grey would be nice with the wallpaper.

And goes with red v well.

We have a v pale grey in living room. And a silvery grey in bathroom.

My mum painted my sister's bedroom green once and it did look bathroomy.

There are a few pics on my profile with the colour and its with red but they aren't that great but may give an idea.The room is open plan though so a bit disjointed in the photos!

We did our living room recently and have grey and white on walls but zing it up with emerald green and azure blue accessories eg lights and cushions.

We have this staircase structure thing all the way up the stairs and on the landing which we have painted all emerald green, its quite in your face but we love it.

Green and grey do go beautifully together IMO.

noddy I like that . My rooms will NEVER look like that! I just aim to make them look like that.

Must got to b&q tomorrow and get some more taster pots.

OK. The greens have now been binned.

The dusted moss has also been vitoed by dh.

So we're now with nothing. DH is wanting to try purple and caramel. I'm not sure, I'm also not sure about spending yet more money on taster pots. We've spent well over £15 on just taster pots to still not have a colour. We also now have no paper on the walls and it won't be long before we're going to need to be painting.

So what do you all think now. The world of colours is your oyster apart from green and grey.