My late wife was very good at that sort of thing. Amongst other things, she had a little booklet - 'Hints for Home Decorators', published by the Texalo Manufacturing Co. I see there's one for sale on ABE, 16th Edition, 1930.
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Hers was later, 23rd edition, so probably pre- or just post-war.
In it there's a simple guide for colour combinations: (hope this works!)
Colour Colour Contrasting of walls of woodwork colours
Red White or cream cream and Venetian red and chocolate chocolate
Blue Light and dark blue pale blue and Light and dark rich rich red red
Green Light and dark green Pale green and Cream and old gold Old Gold
Yellow Cream and Old Gold Pale gold and Pale pink and light red
Make of it what you will! What might have been in vogue pre-war may seem old fashioned today.
Then there are colour wheels
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and
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Other points: use strong colours over small areas, paler colours over larger areas. Too much strong colour can be overwhelming. Remember also the colour of your furniture.
Where is that promised paint that changes colour when a voltage is applied to it, must be at least ten years ago I read about that.
I remember during the 70s I went into one house where the whole of one wall was tiled with mirrors, At first it made it look big, but after a while seeing yourself all the time got onmy nerves. Still the owner seemed to like the effect so that is what matters, I suppose. Brian
When we had our porch built, by an absolute jewel of a builder, he suggested that when we painted the inside walls, we should not choose white (which I had been thinking about): the porch would stick out like a sore thumb: a darker colour would merge the porch into the house better. He was absolutely right (we chose a dark salmon sort of colour[1], which I had mixed at the Dulux counter).
J.
[1] Doubt if that would work for your long room wall, but it works perfectly for our small porch at the front of the house.
There are no binding conventions and you are fully entitled to do it whichever way looks good to you. But I think it is a little unfashionable among the fashion police to have a contrasting wall colour at all, nowadays. A feature thing in the middle of one wall is possibly the modern version?
I'd do the wall that you look at the most - the one with the fireplace and TV. (Against that, when I had my kitchen painted a few years ago I had the wall opposite the window painted a different colour, as two of the other walls were lined with cabinets and the third had the window, there wasn't a lot of choice, but I though, and still think, that it was better than having it all the same colour.)
I have the equivalent of the old lime white here, throughout, chosen by my dear departed; _very_ pale green. If you have it too green, it makes everyone look ill! Not available any more, but this was the Dulux code that matched a small sample we had, and it worked out very well 17265,71YY87078, Vinyl Matt, Base: Light 2012.
Ceilings matt white; woodwork gloss white.
And if you have cream, make sure it's very pale. The traditional 'Magnolia' is too strong.
Strong colours for curtains, carpets, cushions etc. and perhaps just one wall...
When I purchased my house 40 years ago everything was painted in a dark colour. My hallway was mainly ruby red and just changing to a tinted white made it look 3x larger. I watched one of those DIY home improvement TV programs the other day and they did the reverse by painting two long walls with a dark red which IMO made the room look like a prison cell.
Friends moved into a rented property where a few days previously it had been tarted up with paint including the owner thinking that a contrasting dark coloured wall was trendy - she was wrong! Permission was sought, and granted, to have it immediately repainted.
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