What color do you paint walls to downplay dark mauve carpet?
Question:Dark mauve carpet in master bedroom and second bedroom as well as dark mauve carpet and a light mauve bathtub, sink and toilet in the bathroom. It is not an option to change anything except the wall color.
Answers:
Whatever you do, STAY AWAY FROM ANY COLOR THAT HAS YELLOW IN IT! That includes a beigy-yellow. Yellow is the complementary color of purple and this will make your purple stand out like crazy!
The color I suggest is called greige. It is a neutral color that is a mix between beige and grey. During the day is looks like a taupe beige and at night, looks like grey. It's stunning. This will downplay the mauve. Add black and silver accessories and you'll soon love your new space.
light cream or ivory - not too much yellow in it
Light neutral colors or a pale yellow might work too
light beige and use a border with all of those colors in to tangle it together
The only color I can think of that wouldn't look funny is beige.
There is a book called "1200 paint effects for the home Decorator" by Ray Bradshaw. it has thousands of color swatches and color matching soloutions and can really help you out. Without actually seeing your colors I would hesitate to make recomendations. but there is a trick that professionsals use that is called color boards. get some 1 foot squares of wood or cardboard and try different colors on them. Most good paint stores will give you color samples even places like Home Depot if they think that you are going to purchase your paint from them. Use your best guess on a few colors and then paint the colors on to your boards. let them dry and then you can move them around the room and see the effect. It really is the best way to determine your optimum color. good luck
See, this is why God invented neutrals!
Either paint all neutral, such as warm ivory;
decorate 'around' the color, with your bedding/drape color for the wall colors;
or complement [ while neutralizing just a little ] with blue, rose, or green.
Add accessories in your room colors, not the mauve.
Say master BR bedding etc., is shades of blue. Add more blue in those shades for large accessories [ chair, drapes, rug ] and another of the blues for small accessories [ candles, vase, picture frames ]. This will 'neutralize' the mauve
intensity.
I'm really sorry to hear about your mauve issues! I can tell you what they did in the 80's when the carpet was put in, this is what NOT to do! No blues, greens, or greys. Stay away from color altogether actually. Muted and neutrals are your best bet. Actually, just try to cover the carpet with rugs. But the mauve toilet gets my deepest sympathies. You can't go wrong with pure white in the bathroom.
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