Painting between doorways into another room

debo_2006

17 years ago

Wondering if there is a rule of thumb or otherwise as to what color to paint the area of wall between doorway cut outs from one room to the next, when both rooms are painted different colors.

The doorway cutouts can be seen from both room, so how does one determine which color to put there - the color from the living room (sage) or the color from the kitchen (orange), for example? Or do you just paint that part white?

Hope this makes sense. TIA.

Deb

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Lori A. Sawaya

16 years ago

Maybe I'm missing something, but I think I understand that one suggested method of treating the small wall area inside doorways is to paint it a white?

If I'm reading that right, that's insane.

Logical flow of color transition from room to room is indeed an individual thing, but there is some logic and reason needed.

The basic way to decide what color the inside of a doorway should be is based on traffic pattern. I like this one the most, it's logical to me. Kind of relates to the idea above about the room of most "importance" spilling over into the doorway. That makes sense too.

Say you enter at the foyer and your dining room is on the left and the living room is on the right. The dining room is red, the foyer is a buttercream and the living room is blue. Traffic will originate from the foyer into the rooms so the doorways should be the foyer color, not the colors from the rooms.

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Comments (8)

abmatt
17 years ago
We recently painted our entire downstairs using advice from a color consultant who uses BM paints. Rather than force colors on you, he suggests color based on what you tell him you think you want.

Well, he suggested white. It bridges BM Timothy Straw and Huntington Beige and gives the house a kind of modern, refreshing look. We will probably add white faux wood blinds to our home. Since it'll be at least a couple of months before all the renovation work is finised, the jury is still out on this choice, but I'm glad we took the leap.

On the other hand, my MIL dropped by and asked "what color are you going to paint the inside of the doorways?" She assumed it was unfinished when she saw the white!

Anne
debo_2006
Original Author
17 years ago
Of course it doesn't have to bright white, but really any shade of white, even ivory.

So, it sounds to me like white is the choice for inside door paths from room to room?

Anyone else want to chime in?

Deb
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columbusgardener
17 years ago
when our home was being painted the ID said that the colour should be that of the room with the most importance - ie - the doorway to the dining room and hall - is done in the dining room color entrance between the kitchen and great room is that of the great room. All my other rooms have molding so these were my only two examples.
ourhome2007
16 years ago
Anne-- I would love to see a pic of timothy straw? and the beige color--please!!!!
moonshadow
16 years ago
I only have one doorway like this, it leads from living room to dining area. Right now it's unpainted because DH (if he ever gets around to it ;) is going to cover it with wood in the middle and then put decorative trim on the edges so create a 'doorway' that matches all the other baseboard trim and door frames in the house. Hard to picture, I know, but his parents did this in their house and it offered the doorway with no door a very 'finished' look that flowed with other nearby doors with trim. If we were not going to trim it out, I'd do as columbusgardener suggests and paint it the color of the adjoining room with most importance. In my case it would be the color the living room since that's the larger more 'weighter' of the two adjoining rooms.
dragonfly_
16 years ago
Here is a view of my kitchen. Family room to the left of the photo.

The view from the family room looking into the kitchen.

The paint color from the family room was used on the areas exposed from that view.
Hope this helps.
comkow
16 years ago
Dragonfly - I love both of your colors!

I am trying to narrow my yellow/gold choices down for my kitchen and although this could add to my confusion, can you share with me brand and color names please. Thank you.