We haven't picked a wall color either, but I think this room will likely be some shade of cream or off-white. Boring, I know, but I do want it to feel as big as possible, and there's going to be plenty of color in the adjoining kitchen (blue/green cabinetry) and dining room (not sure what will be on the walls, but definitely a color. :-)
For the dining room, I'm leaning towards some shade of purple, if I can talk Kevin into trying it. If not, then green. The purple version might look something like this, though with more wood than white:
The one below has more of the wood, so you can see the effect, although this is a richer purple than I think I'd use -- although hmm...maybe richer would be okay:
I think the main thing is to avoid light purple, so it doesn't end up looking like a little girl's room. Anywhere from medium purple to grey-purple to dark purple I think would be okay.
I was tentatively planning to stick to historic paint colors in the house, and maybe even just Farrow & Ball, at least on the first floor, so that might change things. They don't have a light purple. Maybe a grey with a hint of purple?
Oh, and we have a blue-grey-sage rug (with tiny dark brown and red accents) we were going to use in there. Hmm...I'm not sure that will work with purple at all. I may have to completely rethink this. Dangit. But I still think those purple rooms are pretty, so I'm leaving the photos up.
If you’re going neutral on the walls in the living room, why not give yourself a rich color for the couch? Deep blue or somesuch? I think you should go with one of your rich colors. I think it would make you happy. I’d stay away from cream with toddlers. That’s just asking for trouble. FYI: I don’t know that much about cleaning couches because we didn’t have that particular problem, but I did find that really heavy baking soda solutions did miracles in getting the scent of vomit out of carpets. You could give it a try.
Personally I don’t like any of the light purples. You’ve got to get to at least periwinkle for me to like a lightish purplish color. I like the 2nd color though 🙂 But then you already know we don’t have the same color sense!
I would also vote no on the cream couch because of the kids.
Hmm…I thought about a dark blue couch, but was a little nervous about it because of the lamp — thought the blues might clash. But now that I’m at home looking at the lamp, I see it’s mostly green and gold, with just a few dark blue accents. Maybe I could get away with a dark blue couch.
You don’t think it’d be too dark in a small room?