Paul: I guess the last element within this, or one last factor within this free pdf, Best Paint Colors For Your Bedroom Walls found at trustedhousepainter.com is factor number five, rich and elegant colors. What do you mean by rich and elegant colors in your bedroom and when would someone want to apply that in their bedroom?
Carla: Well when I say rich and elegant I typically mean something that's a little bit more saturated or a color that has a bit more pigment. And again in order for it to feel richer or more elegant typically it tends to have a neutralized element in it.
It's not that you can't get away with jewel tone colors and make them look rich and elegant but sometimes it just takes a little bit more skill if you're uncertain. Always neutralize your colors because it'll be easier for most people to live with in the long term. So basically what that means is think of a state like you want to have your room. You want to be a king or a queen you want to have that estate room, you want it to be rich you want it to be elegant. Maybe you have really big scale fancy furniture and you want to sort of hold the weight of these things.
Think of really heavy furniture. Sometimes too light on the wall all you see is really heavy furniture. You put something a little bit more intense on the walls, a little denser, a little richer and you'll end up actually making the room feel more elegant.
Paul: Interesting, I was going to ask you, is this tip the rich and elegant feel of the room is that something only reserved for big bedrooms like say 15 by 20 bedrooms? Or could you use a rich and elegant feel in your room if it's a really small basement suite bedroom? Can you do that?
Carla: You could, you certainly could but you have to make sure that how you decorate it also goes along with the wall color. So you want to stay with the same scheme so you know if you're using rich and elegant colors decorate rich and elegant too. Even if it is as much as you can afford you know make it look as elegant as you can.
Paul: Now, one thing I do know about colors though being a professional painter myself, is that generally when you look at a color swab it tends to dry a little bit darker and then once you put it on the wall it actually looks a little bit darker. So would that be dangerous putting a rich and elegant color in a dark room in a small room? Could that make it more cave-like or...?
Carla: Yes, it could certainly do that. Really, what your eye is drawn to is contrast. So you could really just end up having less contrast on your ceiling. So maybe don't do white on your ceiling, do a darker color on your ceiling and a darker on your wall and basically it's definitely dark, I'm not going to take away from that it's, really absorbing a lot of light but it is making it sort of moodier if you will and that's where you really need to address your your lighting.
So if this is a room that you do a lot of reading in maybe that's not a great idea. You want to think tasks, what are you doing in here so I'm thinking bedrooms dark not a bad thing because you can sleep in dark spaces. But you know a space that you do a lot of work in maybe not a great idea.
And you're right, it does look darker from a little chip to a wall and then you get it everywhere it tends to look quite a bit deeper and a lot more intense so sometimes going a little bit lighter than you think you want is a good idea inside.
Paul: I see and a popular trend that I found has come into play here in the last year or so is adding like wallpaper as an elegant rich, I've seen a lot of powder rooms in new constructions because it doesn't have a shower or bath it's a small little place. What I've noticed a lot of lately is like the bottom wainscoting is white, is really really bright. Matches the toilet, sink, the pedestal sink.
But then what they use on the top half of the walls is is like a either nice elegant wallpaper or a dark color. So bringing that into your bedroom could you use like a wallpaper feature wall or would you recommend even using like a darker color to create the elegant look as a feature wall in a bedroom? Would that be possible? Or is that kind of faux pas and don't do that?
Carla: You certainly can, you certainly can. When adding wallpaper, depending on the wallpaper, you're also adding pattern and texture in there so that adds interest to a space. And you know the more sort of you know neutral or intense colors sometimes will evoke the same idea. You know you can have a little bit of gloss on it, and you can have gloss and matte or shine and that sometimes even with a soft color palette can make it look more elegant depending on the paper.
Paul: Cool that's good to know well we'll have to do a completely different show about wallpaper.
Carla: Yeah wallpaper's another story for sure.
Paul: Yeah and it's a popular thing. It's funny five years ago most of my jobs were ripping wallpaper off or painting over wallpaper and it's funny how trends just do a complete 180 and now everybody wants wallpaper right? So we'll do another show about that!
Watch the full video interview with Carla Hedman here.
