What's wrong with white paint?

[agotta]

I hate white walls. A color gives the house so much more warmth and personalily.

We have all our bedrooms and bathrooms painted colors (more recient a warm terra cotta and grey) but the main sections are white. It gets so dirty and can hardly be cleaned. I'm looking for a neutral to paint it and I've got some options. DH just wants me to buy it so he can work on the painting when he's bored.

White walls scream rental to me. Give me color any day.

Give me a sec and I'll post some photos

All white

In Color

All white (pardon the mess we were just moving in)

With Color

Beautiful home!!

Here are some pics of our old apartment. Our current one is all white, but only because we plan on moving soon!

Sorry they are blurry!!

 

[RadioNate]

Beautiful home!!

Here are some pics of our old apartment. Our current one is all white, but only because we plan on moving soon!

Sorry they are blurry!!

thanks! I think we have the same yellow. I love the purple too. I just did my garage in a purple (yes my garage, don't worry we don't park in it!).

Without color

With (again sorry about the mess, I'm getting it ready for guests!)

White

Color

Have a convinced you to add a 'little' color yet?

My mom's entire house is a Benjamin Moore color called Fennel Seed it is very neutral and is beautiful. It just goes with everything. I swear it makes a word of difference.

 

[Beth76]

White is awful. If you want something neutral you have thousands of options other than white (or the 100s of variations of). White is so cold and sterile. We painted our basement a very soft cream color with a touch of pink undertones. It's very warm and inviting. Now, the rest of my house is color, color, color!

 

[Chicago526]

Oh, I'm not saying there is anything wrong with color, or that every wall in the house should be white, but it just seems that the home shows absolutly insist that NOTHING be white, or off-white. I like white, but I won't have it in all of my rooms, either! I want to pain the kitchen yellow, and the upstairs bathroom some shade of cream, and in the dinning room, the bottom will be white wainscoting, but I'll be painting the top half of the wall some color, but I haven't picked one yet. The living room will most likely be an off-white, though. So will the master bedroom and 2nd largest bedroom. The smallest will someday be a nursery, and we'll decide on that when the time comes!

I think white is only sterile if you don't have anything else going on in the room. If all your furnature, paintings, and curtains are also neutral, you're right, it's pretty bad.

 

[golfgal]

A friend of mine and I had this discussion with our husbands when we were picking out paint colors for our house. My DH wanted all white everything, he is kind of boring , and her DH had said that he thought the same thing when they were decorating their house. White just doesn't make anything look good. Even a little color on the wall will warm up a room. Well, my friend and her DH went to visit some other friends that had just built a new house and all the walls were white. He told his wife that after visiting that house he realized how much warmer their house seemed even with just tan walls (although their kitchen is yellow and their dining room is red). My DH even agrees that our house is more comfortable feeling with the color on the walls. We painted our ceilings a couple shades lighter then the wall colors, too.

 

[disykat]

I'm with you, Chicago 526. I hate to say it, but in most of the pictures above I prefer the white walls! In my house I have off whites, creamy yellow tones, and beige. All very neutral. We joked about our seaside theme when I was painting because they all have names like "oyster" and "clam chowder". In my living room I have furnishings in carmels, green, and reddish puple - it's just not on the walls. In my family room I have greens, blue, maroon, and hot pink (sounds horrible, but it works. I have an heirloom quilt on one wall with a very hot pink and I decorated to fit it) - again the walls are neutral. Our bedroom is a warm tone on the walls, but neutral. The boys rooms are the same off white as when we moved in, but they have posters all over the place. My kitchen is also still off white and I like it that way - there's plenty of color in the accesories. My dining area is off white above a chair rail and a warm beige below. The only room with lots of color is the basement (basically an exercise room) downstairs and I actually painted that a stark white - to offset the navy blue and lime green stripes I painted.

I decided many years ago I didn't like dark walls. Maybe it has to do with living through the 70's panneling and wallpaper and different wall colors and carpets in every room? I don't paint neutrals for resale - I like them!

 

[Pooh_Friend#1]

I have all white walls, I would love to get color on the walls but I am horrible at interior decorating. Anyone want to help me?!!!??

I love the pictures, wish I had the creativeness to decorate.

 

[golfgal]

I'm with you, Chicago 526. I hate to say it, but in most of the pictures above I prefer the white walls! In my house I have off whites, creamy yellow tones, and beige. All very neutral. We joked about our seaside theme when I was painting because they all have names like "oyster" and "clam chowder". In my living room I have furnishings in carmels, green, and reddish puple - it's just not on the walls. In my family room I have greens, blue, maroon, and hot pink (sounds horrible, but it works. I have an heirloom quilt on one wall with a very hot pink and I decorated to fit it) - again the walls are neutral. Our bedroom is a warm tone on the walls, but neutral. The boys rooms are the same off white as when we moved in, but they have posters all over the place. My kitchen is also still off white and I like it that way - there's plenty of color in the accesories. My dining area is off white above a chair rail and a warm beige below. The only room with lots of color is the basement (basically an exercise room) downstairs and I actually painted that a stark white - to offset the navy blue and lime green stripes I painted.

I decided many years ago I didn't like dark walls. Maybe it has to do with living through the 70's panneling and wallpaper and different wall colors and carpets in every room? I don't paint neutrals for resale - I like them!

There is a difference between neutral and white though. You have some color on your walls. Color doesn't mean dark or bold it just means not white. Even a light taupe or even a creamy off white on the walls will give warmth to a room vs your basic builder white paint.

 

[punkin]

I'm with you OP. I love white. I have an all white bathroom with dark wood accents and it looks amazing.

 

[RadioNate]

There is a difference between neutral and white though. You have some color on your walls. Color doesn't mean dark or bold it just means not white. Even a light taupe or even a creamy off white on the walls will give warmth to a room vs your basic builder white paint.

I agree...everything builder white is much different than neutrals.

I'm all for neutrals. Like I said my mom's house is all neutrals and it is beautiful.

 

[Mermaid02]

White is boring and gets dirty easily.

 

[Tigger&Belle]

I was raised in a house with NO decorating sense at all. We had a wall the ran the length of our kitchen and living room. My mom wanted different colors in those 2 rooms, so she drew a line and painted one color in one room and another in the other room. Trust me, it looked terrible!

So when I had my first couple homes I could not paint anything but white/off white. All the walls had to be the same. I then realized that color is ok and I figured out how to do it and have it not be tacky (even though I'm still not sure about my family room/kitchen and the dijon gold walls ). I like different colors and it's fun to experiment with paint. It's easy and cheap to redo, too, even when paying someone else to do it.

I think that color can look good on walls, but also white/off white. Whatever the owners of the house decide and are happy with.

 

[DawnCt1]

White is good. And I've seen some shows where they actually have painted white or off-white. But it's hard to show what kind of effect that has in a room on TV. It looks much better in person. So, for purposes of a TV show, white is bad.

I think you are right. Color TV=paint the walls and ceiling!

 

[Tigger&Belle]

I have all white walls, I would love to get color on the walls but I am horrible at interior decorating. Anyone want to help me?!!!??

I love the pictures, wish I had the creativeness to decorate.

I wish I could figure out how to post pictures and would show what we've done. Trust me, if I have been able to paint colors, you can, too. I certainly didn't learn anything about decorating growing up.

 

[Linnie The Pooh]

Uh oh, looks like I'm in the minority here, but I have to chime in since my walls, ceilings and trim all are WHITE!! But.... I do have to add that my house is 2700 sq. ft and has a lot of little rooms. The ceilings are standard so it makes the house feel closed in with color in it. When we moved in, the walls were a cream color and once we painted them, they look so much cleaner and nicer. It really opened my house up. We use accents in the room to add color-such as bedding, linens, furniture etc. It also makes it easy to change the theme or color scheme in the room if you get tired of it. White goes with anything so you don't have to repaint if you want to get new stuff.

We're selling this spring and DH wants me to repaint the entire house to make it look nice, but I'm against that. I think maybe the new owners might want to change the color (or add some color) so I'm not going to all that work. I'll touch it up, but that's it.

OK, now I have to say that the new house we're building has 30 ft ceilings on the main floor so when we told our builder we wanted the whole place painted white on white, he about messed himself. Too severe, he gently told us. So we are in the process of selecting our paint. We have a Mediterannean/Old World feel going in the house, so we're leaning towards a tannish, taupe type color with off white trim. No more white for us! I think I'm gonna like it.

 

[pearlieq]

Nothing, dang it!

We live in a new construction house, and people are constantly asking when we're going to paint. I like the white! It's clean, crisp, bright, and cheery and doesn't need to be coordinated with anything.

I'll probably do some painting, but I expect white to be featured prominently throughout.

To those who posted pics, your homes are lovely, but I liked the "white" rooms as least as much, if not better, than the "color". Different strokes, I guess!