I hope that once you have everything back in place that yu will love it. And please show us pics!

I am also fascinated w/ color. For all of the same reasons that you noted above. I wish that I could have a job just looking at colors and fiddeling around w/ them.

Ttodd, I intend to show pics as soon as everything is done. I had to take down my drapery rods and patch the holes since they weren't hung properly and were pretty much glued to the wall with liquid nails. Fortunately, I now know how to use a toggle bolt to hang things properly! If I must say so, I'm getting pretty handy with alot of the Bob Vila-type stuff. It's very useful, that's for sure!

And by the way, I'm trying to think of a bright accent color to use. The woods in the room (floor, furniture) are orange-y and I have a black framed quadrille shaped mirror, a black lamp, black drapery rods, and of course a big 40 inch black flat screen TV. Maybe an acid green or chartreuse? I thought a really bright color might help alleviate some of the grayness of the paint color.

For instance, should I have gone with a more saturated color, like Wythe in my bedroom due to its poor lighting?

First, I'd wonder if you could do something to improve the lighting situation. I know it's not always feasible to do that tho. Sometimes time and budget only allow for paint.

More saturated, less muted colors are often a good pairing with light that is dim, not robust. If it feels to you that the quality of light is a bit one-dimensional, or flat, or seemingly has a quality to it that just isn't very *full*, then it can be a good idea to add a wall color to the atmosphere that is the opposite of all those things -- like you stated, 'more saturated'. More saturated can help bust thru the dimness or grayed quality of light and deliver more color to the eye.

But you don't want vivid either. :-) You want to try to strike the right balance between the light and the colorfulness or chroma in the paint color.

One popular tip (that I like to dismiss) is to choose a paint chip that you like and then 'go one up'. Supposedly, that tip is meant to help you avoid choosing wall colors that are too dark, too colorful, just too much in general. The 'going one up' tip is meant to address the fact that wall colors grow more intense as they cover more area. This example is a good reason why tips like that don't work. In the case of poor lighting, 'going one up' on the strip probably isn't the best fit because more value, more color is the better partner for poorly lit rooms.

Would a warmer color have been a better choice in a poorly lit room?

Maybe. Maybe not. Since I'm on the topic of tips today, :-D, another one is to align the cool and warm sides of a color wheel with a compass. Meaning the cool side of the color wheel lines up with south and the warm side of the wheel lines up with north. Warm colors are suppose to be the better fit for cool, low light. Cool colors are suppose to go with warm, intense light. Like the other color tip, this north/warm and south/cool color tip has flaws too.

A poorly lit room is still going to be a poorly lit room whether it's painted a warm color or a cool color. What changes with color temperature is mood and *feel* in the space. So if you think a warmer wall color would improve your perception of how your poorly lit room would feel, function, and fit with the other elements in the room then a warmer color would have been the better choice. The flip side to that is someone else might perceive the cooler color with the poor light as restful, calm, serene and maybe even more cohesive with the room's contents.

So, the warmer and cooler thing is really more about aligning color with desired mood, function, expectations, and color tolerance than it is about trying to manage the quality of light into something that it isn't. Because you're not going to be successful managing the quality of light into something it isn't just by painting the walls -- poorly lit is going to stay that way until you buy more lamps or change window treatments, etc.

The subject of paring a dark wall color with poor light is another part of the discussion but not directly relative to you question so I'll skip that and move on.

What accents colors will make my walls appear less gray and either more blue or more green?

That's the easier question of the bunch. Juxtaposing color that is opposite or complementary to blue and green should help coax out from the gray a sense of more blue or green. Complementary colors would be oranges and reds.

If you think about it, Acid green or chartreuse is opposite in a sense too. That kind of vibrant accent color would be opposite the neutralized grayed aspect of Quietude. Opposite and complementary is not exclusive to the level of contrast that is hue, like blue-orange, green-red. Vibrant juxtaposed to dull is a level of color contrast that's available to you to use as well -- and it could very well work to help you feel like some of the grayness of Quietude has been balanced out.

I actually used Whythe blue in a room which is very bright and I found it to be perfect. Not the least bit bright, nice and cozy. I'm going to use it again in combination with Wheeler tan in a friend's room.

Wow, FunColors! Extremely helpful comments.

I've been following Jockewing's hunt for the right color for her walls, lighting situation, wood colors, etc. (Thanks,btw, Jockewing, for keeping us all up to date.)

Both of you are helping me think through the color direction for my home reno. About the middle of next week it'll be time to paint.

I so get what was said above about the warm v cool thing and feelings or mood. Since I can only think about colors, and not actually see them, it's funny that I have such strong reactions to color. Three key people--a friend, a professional decorator, and a friend who has retired and sold her decorating business--have been telling me to paint in a "warm neutral", think golds and yellows, accents in reds, russets, or burnt orange, etc.

But I don't like these colors as choices for painting walls. I didn't like them when I could see, and I still don't. "Like" isn't the right word...I have a little red dress that I like very much. I love red roses. I love getting the image of a red cardinal flashing in flight across my mind's eye when my DH tells me he has spotted one flying across a backdrop of snow into the pines along our fence. I love imagining the color of a tangerine as I peel one. There are certain sunset colors that sometimes come to me with breathtaking clarity.

But if I had the choice between sapphires, emaralds, and rubies, I'd choose the sapphires every time.

So, like Jockewing, I'm going to try to find a blue that works in our low natural light room. I will use touches of terracotta, soft orange, etc. to draw the blue (green) tones from the greyed paint. I've searched on this site and created a six page document listing the blues people liked here, particularly noting the ones that worked in someone else's low light situation. I figure that at least gives me a starting point.

So, Jockewing, should I add SW Quietude?

Wellspring

Funcolors, thanks so much for the information. You should really start writing a book or instructional pamphlet that breaks down all these color myths and really tells us how color works. For instance, I have a basic ability to discern which colors "go" together, but I would love to know what color to use to highlight yellow, or purple, or blue, etc. What types of color should I use in low light or brightly lit areas, etc. You are truly a wealth of knowledge.

In regards to the Quietude-- I just finished painting Sunday night, so the furniture hasn't even been all pushed back into place yet. If I had to give a one word description of the color from the SW strip including Quietude, I would say green. But amazingly, the walls painted in this color much more strongly read blue. There is a green undertone that eliminates that 80's country cornflower blue look that I despise, and the green gives it an exotic almost undefineable quality. Done in SW Cashmere flat, the walls now have a depth and velvety quality. Interestingly, the color doesn't really give a fresh, airy feeling--it is much cozier, and almost has an Old World feeling. I am somewhat disappointed because I really preferred to have that breezy, tropical feeling, but this color really doesn't lean that way too much. But like you say, lighting is boss. When I turn on 3 lamps in addition to the overhead fixture, the turquoise-ocean feeling comes out of the color much more. Maybe I'm being lazy, but I don't feel like turning on 3 lamps and the overhead everytime I want to enjoy the color on the walls.

You should really start writing a book or instructional pamphlet that breaks down all these color myths and really tells us how color works. For instance, I have a basic ability to discern which colors "go" together, but I would love to know what color to use to highlight yellow, or purple, or blue, etc. What types of color should I use in low light or brightly lit areas, etc.

I actually did that. And it's my "thesis" for the IACC-NA certification or accreditation or ordainment -- whatever it's called. Compass Color Rose is a guide to specific characteristics of color that are best suited to the exposure of natural light that each room receives. I speak to partnering the right pitch of nuance with inherent quality of light and the physio/psychological affects that can result from coloring environments with this method. Could call it philosophy instead of method, I guess. This is Rose.

Anyone still awake out there???

My addressing famous color tips and tricks seems to happen inconsistently and pretty much only when I decide they annoy me. :~D lol!

Maybe I'm being lazy, but I don't feel like turning on 3 lamps and the overhead every time I want to enjoy the color on the walls.
Not lazy, just real about how you use the room. And it's not like you can uproot your house and spin it so the windows face the *right* way. All you can do is test colors most thoroughly during the hours, and in the lighting configuration, you like to use the room.

Wellspring, maybe I'm being nosy, but what do you mean you can only think about colors, and not actually see them?

There are many studies about folks with limited vision still being able to sense the energy of color in a room. Just because the visual sensation of color is lessened or non-existent doesn't mean that the whole physiological experience of color stops. Visually sensing color is the most widely understood, most accepted notion of how humans interact with color, but the vision system is just one part of the whole human experience of color.

Fun, any chance you would share your thesis with us? How does Rose work?

Oh, and in response to an earlier post, I am a "he", not a "she"! I know this board is mostly populated by the ladies, but there are some guys that are in to this stuff, too.

I need to figure out how to do that. It really should be condensed down in to bites that are easier to understand and use.

I made Rose several years ago when I first went from color in graphic design to architectural color. Didn't take me very long to figure out that there were certain qualities of paint colors that partnered well with certain qualities of natural and artifical light. I'm not that quick on my feet -- I'm a ponderer, I'm not good with 'snap' responses. When you're standing in someone's house and they're looking at you waiting for an answer to their color dilemmas, you kinda need to respond in a timely manner if you don't want to look like an idiot. So I made Rose and stuck her on the front on my planner.

Each triangle is a prompt. Each color in each triangle is a reminder about what hues, tints, tones, and shades fit well with the intermediate and cardinal directions. If you bisect the color circle behind the rose part, you'll see the north/warm, south/cool basic concept -- and it is just a basic concept. It's basic because any hue will work in any direction of light as long as it has the right nuance and it's aligned with human and design color objectives.

Bottom line is Rose, as cute as she is, is a cheat sheet.

Jockewing: Sorry about the he / she thing. Talk about making an assumption! When I first came on board on GW, I posted frequently on a particular forum on the garden side. For about 2 years just about everybody thought I was a he. I'm not.

Anyway, thank you for correcting me. I suppose your on-line name might be a clue? My voice synthesized computer makes a mash of it, but when I went through it letter by letter, it seems to be a name?

FunColors- Can't see physiologically. Used to. Love to play with colors in my head. Once upon a time...I took several courses in interior design. So many years ago it doesn't mean a thing any more. But I am enjoying reading this forum very much. Good people around here. There's even a guy who didn't get too freaked when I thought he was a girl!

Hope I'm forgiven,

Wellspring

No harm done, wellspring. My "name" is from the character of Jock Ewing, the patriarch of the television shows Dallas and Knots Landing.

Jockewing, that is so interesting! I was trying to color match our LR walls from PO's, and the Wythe Blue chip matched perfectly, so when I needed to do some patching, I bought a pint of Wythe Blue as that was the smallest size I could get. It *is* much brighter and bluer than the color on our walls. So, in a few months when we repaint the LR, I may just go with the Quietude.