Interior Paint Wall Color Ideas

¶ A very extended treatise might be written on the treatment of inside wall surfaces; and indeed it is a very interesting portion of the decorator's business. Whether it be done by painting or papering, the exercise of judgment and good taste is no less necessary. "A handsome room may be quite spoiled by bad finishing, and by ill chosen colors of the walls and furniture; and the defects of a poor one concealed or at least much diminished by good management in this respect."

¶ We subjoin some extracts from the "Laws of Harmonious Coloring". "The first and most obvious defect in the coloring of rooms is when there is no particular tone fixed on for an apartment; that is, when one part of the furniture is chosen without any reference to the rest, and the painting done without any reference to the furniture. This generally produces an incongruous mixture; and is, in comparison to a tastefully decorated apartment, as far as regards coloring, what a child produces with its first box of paints to the work of a great master.

¶ A second arid more common fault is the predominance of some bright and intense color either upon the walls or floor. It is evident that the predominance of a bright and overpowering color upon so large a space as the floor or wall of a room, must injure the effect of the finest furniture. This great error often arises from tIme difficulty of choosing a paper hanging or carpet, and our liability to be bewildered among the multitude of patterns which are produced: the most attractive of which, on a small scale, are often from this very circumstance the more objectionable in regard to their forming a large mass in an apartment, particularly as the artists who design them seem to be regulated by no fixed principles; but, from their repeated deviations from the established rule of harmony, appear to give themselves up to the vague pursuit of novelty alone.

¶ A third error is introducing pale colors, which may have been well enough chosen in regard to their tints, but whose particular degrees of strength have not been attended to. Thus the intensity of one or more may so affect those which they were intended to balance and relieve, as to give them a faded and unfinished appearance. This may proceed from applying the fundamental laws without any regard to the minutia; for although it is always necessary to subdue and neutralize such colors as are introduced in large quantities, yet when they are reduced by dilution alone, the effect is very different.

¶ There is a fourth defect and rather a common one, and that is, a want of the media which unite and harmonize an assemblage of bright colors which may in other respects be perfectly well arranged; for it is a rule in the higher branches of the art, that confusion of parts of equal strength should always be avoided. A room of this description resembles a Chinese landscape, where foreground and distance are jumbled together. An opposite effect to this is monotony, or a total want of variety; for some are so afraid of committing errors in point of harmony, that neutral tints alone are introduced, and sometimes one tint of this kind alone prevails.

¶ Variety is a quality found to exist in the most trifling as well as in the grandest combination of nature's coloring; and it is, as already observed, in uniting and making an arrangement of various colors harmonious and agreeable to the eye that the skill of a house-painter chiefly consists. It is this which produces what is termed repose in a picture, a quality equally desirable in the coloring of an apartment."

¶ It is clear that the principles above enunciated apply with as much force to the painting of dressings and all interior wood-work as to the treatment of walls.

¶ Although it is entirely beyond our province to enter into the specific details of interior painting, we may add in this connection a single remark that may be of service to the amateur decorator, whether his labors are confined to the cottage or extend to the more pretending mansion. Whatever tints may be used for the walls, it has been observed that if the ceiling is colored a shade darker, it has the effect of apparently lowering its altitude, while a contrary course, viz., painting the ceiling of a lighter shade than the walls, produces a contrary result, making the story appear higher than it really is, and this effect is greatly enhanced if a moderate gradation of shade is given to the walls, from the base upward. This principle may often be applied in plain painting, where it may seem desirable to give an appearance of greater height to a room, and comes frequently into play in the repairs of old houses.

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