Painting Open Areas

Open Areas

Q: My living room is very open. It adjoins a hallway leading to the bedrooms and a stairwell leading to the downstairs family room. How can I paint my boring white living room a shade of green without painting the hallway and the stairwell?

A: You're right—this presents a problem. When two paint colors meet on one wall, it can be a jarring sight. So create a distraction along that line. A solution would be strategically placing a screen, an armoire, or a tall plant where two colors meet. Even though the disguise would not reach to the ceiling, it would help soften the transition.

Another technique is to use a vertical border between the two colors. Although wallpaper borders are typically thought of as horizontal elements, there's no reason they can't be place vertically. If your house has moldings, a piece of molding or even a faux post along the wall would work to provide a natural boundary.

A third method would be to slowly transition from the green living room to the white hallways by adding increasing amounts of white paint to the green.