What can I do with my purple room?

Kathy from New Jersey writes:

Hi Christy,

I have moved into a new home recently. My husband and I have been painting and decorating some of the rooms in our house, but have left the guest bedroom for last. This was a young girls room from the previous owners. As you can see, it is very purple!! The top half of the walls have a faux finish, then a white chair rail. The bottom half of the walls are a light purple or lavender. I don't mind the purple, I just don't want it to look like a young girls room any longer.Any suggestions,

Kathy from New Jersey

PS The peace sign is from the Jersey Shore dating back to 1974!!!

Kathy:

You're very lucky to have a husband that helps you! When I first look at these photographs saw too much purple. They have painted the walls, ceiling and even the heat baseboards purple. Purple is a very pretty color, but like everything else, too much of a good thing isn't so good. There are lots of things you can do to this room to break up the purple effect.

Go to the Behr paint web site: http://www.behr.com/behrx/workbook/ Click on the Start ColorSmart bar. Go the purples and match up your room color. Then see what selection Behr recommends that you match it with. It gives you several choices, but in the end you can paint a bedroom on their site and see how the colors coordinate. It's another great site for "virtual" painting.

If I had this room to tackle, I would first re-paint that ceiling, it's just too much purple. I would paint that ceiling with a flat white and add a hint of beige/fawn/tan. I would paint over the faux paint (above the chair rail) with a very light tan (Khaki like). I would add some throw rugs to give a warmer feeling and perhaps look around for some wood side tables. Add some larger lamps on the side table. I would definitely paint over the closet doors to get rid of the tuxedo look.

If you love the faux finish and want to keep it, then change the color of the solid paint under the chair rail. You could paint a tan color there as well. Add some nice prints, some greenery and for heavens sake, ditch the peace sign!

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