Need some painting advice...

[kimwim8]

We just had some construction done, and added sliding glass doors to our dining room. Since the walls are a mess, we've decided to add some color to the room, and not just re-paint them off-white.

The plan is to add a chair rail, and then do one color on top and a different shade of that color on the bottom. I'm thinking in the brown/tan family.

Do I put the darker color on top or bottom? I know I've heard which goes where on a Trading Spaces show at one point, but I don't remember. We have 9 foot ceilings and crown molding at the ceiling. I just don't want the wrong color to make the room look "shorter".

Thanks for any help!!

 

[caitycaity]

i would say dark on bottom, ut i don't know if that is the way it is "supposed" to be.

 

[daisyduck123]

We just did something similar, & we have the dark color on the bottom & a lighter color on the top. The bottom part is the part that always gets messed up due to kids bumping things into it (in my case, it's DS with his toys,) and a dark color on the bottom helps to hide the marks on the walls.

 

[RUDisney]

I've got a dark blue-green color on top of the pearly white chair rail with striped wall paper under the rail that is tan and medium teal. My interior designer helped to select the colors and they look very nice. There is also a pearly-white crown molding, too.

 

[puffkin]

For my sons nursery, which is a small 10 x 10 room, I was concerned about using 2 colors because I wanted to make the room seem bigger. We did a darker blue on the bottom and a light blue on top with a border in between that matched his bedding set. It turned out really well and makes the room seem bigger with the lighter color on top.

Once thing that we did that I think makes the room seem bigger is we put our border up higher than half way. I think we did it around 5 foot (8 foot ceilings). So, there is more of the darker color than the lighter. It seems to give the room more height. It may not be a possibility with a chair rail, but it worked well with our border.

Here is a picture if you are interested:

 

[ChristmasElf]

Generally the lighter color on the top will give the illusion that the ceilings are higher, making the room appear larger.

 

[kimwim8]

Thank you so much!

puffkin - thank you for sharing a picture. What an adorable nursery!

 

[WDWAurora]

My cousin just redid their house and I *love* how they did their living room. They went with a deep red (sort of a brick shade) on top and did a khaki-ish color on the bottom with a wooden chair rail. Gorgeous. They actually did the opposite of puffkin's, with a slightly lower chair rail, and the room doesn't feel short at all.

BTW puffkin-that scheme in the nursery is GORGEOUS!