Find your diamond
Find your jewelry
shape
carat
color
clarity

What color are your hallways (if your house is mostly tan)

J

janinegirly

Ideal_Rock
Joined
Sep 21, 2006
Messages
3,689
Hoping for some feedback on hallway/foyer paint. We just painted our whole house and much of it is in the neutral family (tans, soft yellows,etc with white trim/molding). I know it'll look better once furniture is in there, but I'm struggling with the hallway/foyer color. We orginally went with a soft off white, but it is starting to look tan when surrounded by the other colors. Thanks!
 
Re: What color are your hallways (if your house is mostly ta

Well, mine is the same nuetral out of laziness. BUT, I think you could do a really awesome accent color and it'd look great. Do you have an accent color in an adjacent room that you could pull into that hallway? Does it get much light? If it gets light, I'd definitely go for a "power" color. If it doesn't, you might want to drill it back a bit, but I still think you could do it.

Not the last house I bought, but the one before, had neutral walls in the living room and bedrooms, but the small hallway that connected all three rooms was a really great jeweltoned teal color. It looked great!
 
Re: What color are your hallways (if your house is mostly ta

Ours is a light yellowish cream (Montgomery White by Benjamin Moore). We also have some dark red accent walls so it still has some punch. Our friends have a dark olive green in their foyer and neutrals everywhere else and it looks AWESOME!
 
Re: What color are your hallways (if your house is mostly ta

We have a bi-level so a 2 story foyer and did a dark green foor the foyer hallway. I LOVE it. Our furniture is green, so it really popped.
We did a lighter green off the same color strip for the hallway it opens into. Then our other walls are pretty "vanilla".
 
Re: What color are your hallways (if your house is mostly ta

My hallways are just off-white/cream.

I think a pop of something in the foyer can be really nice though - a bit of a darker shade of tan, or grey. Not something super dark and brooding, but something a little unexpected. I would try to stick with a color a shade or two darker than one of the other colors you've used - I'm all for keeping colors consistent by repeating paints from the same paint chip rather than bringing in a different color in every room; it will really make your house flow together.
 
Re: What color are your hallways (if your house is mostly ta

Thanks - elrohwen - what is the shade if you happen to know? (of offwhite/cream).

I like everyone's suggestions of going darker, green,etc...but am definitely nervous about that--we tend to keep things neutral but on the other hand I'm not liking the way things are blending. Here's a photo to maybe help show what I mean. Or am i being too picky? I mean something too light in the halls might be blah too.

house6.1.JPG
 
Re: What color are your hallways (if your house is mostly ta

Not sure how daring you are...but I have a burnt orange color in my front hallway/foyer and it is awesome! Candice Olsen did it awhile back and I stole the idea! My first home we built was VERY neutral as we used a lot of "safe" colors, but when we built our new house we decided to not be so afraid of color. We still have neutrals, but have pops of color here and there and I really like it. Anyways, color is so personal, but I'd recommend watching HGTV and get some ideas. I am very visual so I like to look thru magazines and see rooms/colors/design ideas in an actual room to be inspired!!
 
Re: What color are your hallways (if your house is mostly ta

Our house started out w/every room a different shade of off white, and I tried to do "pops" of color but it's not *me*, so now it's full of color. I would suggest a bold color, personally..something really striking like..brick red or, as suggested, burnt orange, or a rusty color. My living room into the little hallway by the bedrooms is burnt orange and I love it. Being surrounded by color makes me feel good!
 
Re: What color are your hallways (if your house is mostly ta

Neutral doesn't necessarily mean tan, cream, gold, etc. Green and blue can also be very neutral. I suppose it depends on the look you're going for.

I recall you have a colonial, so, think of traditional colors reminiscent of the Williamsburg era or something.
 
Re: What color are your hallways (if your house is mostly ta

pennquaker09 said:
Neutral doesn't necessarily mean tan, cream, gold, etc. Green and blue can also be very neutral. I suppose it depends on the look you're going for.

I recall you have a colonial, so, think of traditional colors reminiscent of the Williamsburg era or something.
Click to expand...
I agree about looking into some colors that were found in Colonial homes from the past. Your cream color is too light, so I think your insticts are there. I would go with a color that's the same saturation and value as your tan . Here's a color chart from Pratt and Lambert's Williamsburg collection. Maybe it'll inspire you!

http://www.colorcharts.org/ccorg/resources/colors.aspx?companyid=124427&lineid=801
 
Re: What color are your hallways (if your house is mostly ta

I've been struggling with this too. Somehow, when you enter a home you want to be enveloped by warmth, yet not overwhelmed with too much color.

I love Heranderson and Penn's suggestions. We moved into a house with brown center entry hall, its surprisingly neutral, yet dramatic ... so I haven't touched it yet, but its double height ceiling so a paint job will be a big deal and big commitment. but I would like to go lighter, I love the center entry hall in Mad Men, a light blue, sort of a wedgewood greyish blue ... or a dirty french yellow. We recently painted the ceiling a light silvery blue which is awesome... but I don't get much light, facing north/west.
 
Re: What color are your hallways (if your house is mostly ta

I think what I don't like about the hall color is that it's too close to tan, while being lighter. Is it a lighter color from the same paint chip as the tan? If not, that's the direction I would go - don't pick a new cream color, just pick the lightest (or second lightest) shade on the paint chip that your tan came from. This will help everything flow. Right now, they're too similar while still being different and I think it clashes.

Personally, I'm not a fan of painting hallways dark dramatic colors. My MIL did do a medium grey in her foyer that I liked, and I think it worked for that space, but for most homes I don't think it's the best idea since you have so many rooms leading off of hallways - you want something neutral that will tie the other rooms together, rather than set them off. If you do want a dramatic color, pick one of the dark shades from the same paint chips you've already used in your house - either than tan or another color.
 
Re: What color are your hallways (if your house is mostly ta

Elrohwen said:
I think what I don't like about the hall color is that it's too close to tan, while being lighter. Is it a lighter color from the same paint chip as the tan? If not, that's the direction I would go - don't pick a new cream color, just pick the lightest (or second lightest) shade on the paint chip that your tan came from. This will help everything flow. Right now, they're too similar while still being different and I think it clashes.

Personally, I'm not a fan of painting hallways dark dramatic colors. My MIL did do a medium grey in her foyer that I liked, and I think it worked for that space, but for most homes I don't think it's the best idea since you have so many rooms leading off of hallways - you want something neutral that will tie the other rooms together, rather than set them off. If you do want a dramatic color, pick one of the dark shades from the same paint chips you've already used in your house - either than tan or another color.
Click to expand...


I like this suggestion, only because I am really unsure about going darker since the house is older and therefore "tighter" and well.. also because we obviously do not tend to go for darker colors.

Anyway, the question I have about going lighter on same fan deck of tan is what if there are 2 different shades of tan in the house (ie downstairs rooms and upstairs)? Just choose one and go with that? And is it always true that BM fan decks are in same family? I vaguely remember reading that for some lines this was true, but not all.

Thank you everyone, I've just ordered a bunch of samples (even with some darker colors, lol), so we shall see!
 
Re: What color are your hallways (if your house is mostly ta

I think if I had a Colonial and I was selecting colors, I would have put a tan in the hallway and had fun with all of those colors in each room. I normally don't pick colors that way, but it fits the style of the home so well.

I think picking a lower color sounds like a good solution. As long as you stay with the same undertone of the tan color, I think you'll be fine. Just remember to have the color be significantly lighter or it will just look the tan color in the room or worse, will look like a mistake.

So back to the green, have you thought about a Restoration Hardware Silver Sage kind of color?
 
Re: What color are your hallways (if your house is mostly ta

Ahh, I see what you're saying - some of the BM fan decks look like they're made to coordinate with each other, not to display the same color in different levels of saturation. Still, if they're all intended to coordinate I think you'd be fine using a medium tan for your walls and the lightest color for your hallways, even if it's considered the "trim" or "accent" color or whatever. I'm assuming they actually did pick colors with the same base, or else they wouldn't coordinate well in the first place.

Personally, I would choose the same hallway color to use throughout your house and pick whichever coordinates with your tans the best. Assuming you pick something close to white (which is what I would choose - an off-white, nothing too "tan" because it will look too similar to your wall color), it shouldn't be hard to coordinate with tan. If you pick something more saturated it will be more difficult and you might have to use one color upstairs and a different color downstairs. It needs to be different enough - either lighter or darker - to really contrast with your tan, and your current hallway color doesn't contrast I don't think.
 
Re: What color are your hallways (if your house is mostly ta

herr - thanks for chiming in! That was the original plan (color in rooms, or at least some rooms) but DH ruled out all the blue/green samples I had saying they'd make the rooms too small. We do have pink in DD's (of course!) and a dark color (close to a brown) in the DR which works great with the crown molding, but otherwise my best shot at getting a green in the house is in the mud room ;). I should have just chosen all colors and let DH deal, lol. In the meantime I have ordered a whole host of green samples out of curiosity so will see how that goes. And I do think bringing in color with accents, furniture will change things too.

elrohwen - I think I will give that a shot. Believe it or not the hallway color is part of the "off-white" line so was very surprised to see it show up tan on our walls. The tan we do have upstairs (Manchester Tan) is actually the lightest on the deck so I suppose either go with a 50% version of that or opt for ligthest shade on chip from tan that is downstairs (Monroe Bisque), which turns out to be Monterey White. It looks like a totally different family, but like you said complimenting or lighter version should work. I hope!! Thanks and I have to say my DD loves that jumping bunny ! :)
 
Re: What color are your hallways (if your house is mostly ta

From looking at the colors online, it looks like the Monroe Bisque and Monterey White are definitely the same hue, but different saturation - to me they both look like a pinky based tan - a very warm color. The Manchester Tan looks like a much cooler color. I would definitely check out the Monterey White near the Manchester Tan before painting the whole thing - I could see those two clashing.

If you do find that they clash, I would go with something even more in the white family that it neutral enough to go with both. I wish I could see all of these colors in rooms, but I couldn't find a good pic of the Monterey White in a room - it might look a lot less warm than it does in a small swatch, or it might look even warmer.

eta: I think it's more important to have downstairs colors coordinate than upstairs colors - most downstairs living areas kind of flow together, so you want it to appear to be one living space. You want the foyer to connect up the stairs and into the upstairs hallway with on continuous color as well. Once you get to individual bedrooms, I don't think it matters quite as much if the rooms are a slightly different color than the hallway - it's expected that bedrooms will be more unique. So I would focus on coordinating the downstairs colors first and worry about how it matches the bedrooms second.
 
Re: What color are your hallways (if your house is mostly ta

Manchester Tan is actually the color you see in the photo above (inside the room). It looks nothing like the swatch (at least to me). I was told it''s meant to be a warm true tan, which is what I was going for - it's also a shade that is also all over the Pottery Barn catalogue, but looks extremely pale in those rooms while in our house, it is more of a yellow based tan. Which is ok for that room, but brings us back to the hallway..

I'll have to check out the Monterey White next to all the tan shades. thanks again!
 
Re: What color are your hallways (if your house is mostly ta

Light colors don't come to life in dark areas/spaces. This is why you'll often encounter powder rooms painted in bold colors.
 
Re: What color are your hallways (if your house is mostly ta

pennquaker09 said:
Light colors don't come to life in dark areas/spaces. This is why you'll often encounter powder rooms painted in bold colors.
Click to expand...

While I would agree with this, powder rooms also don't connect various rooms of the house together and create flow.
 
Re: What color are your hallways (if your house is mostly ta

pennquaker09 said:
Light colors don't come to life in dark areas/spaces. This is why you'll often encounter powder rooms painted in bold colors.
Click to expand...
I know I would be concerned that the beige color would end up being drab because of this phenomenon. I know I would be considering mirrors, sconces and maybe a full spectrum paint from Ellen Kennon.
 
Re: What color are your hallways (if your house is mostly ta

heraanderson said:
pennquaker09 said:
Light colors don't come to life in dark areas/spaces. This is why you'll often encounter powder rooms painted in bold colors.
Click to expand...
I know I would be concerned that the beige color would end up being drab because of this phenomenon. I know I would be considering mirrors, sconces and maybe a full spectrum paint from Ellen Kennon.
Click to expand...

Maybe it's differing taste but I'm ok with the tans being predominant (i.e not drab to me) -- it is the canvas/backdrop for the rest of the decor (furnishings, etc.) which is what completes the home. And PQ it was that great Blond Wood throughout your other home that I loved...so crisp and clean against the molding! However I agree a splash of color can look great and that transition/flow is important (i.e hallways).
 
Re: What color are your hallways (if your house is mostly ta

well, we've spent the past weekend painting the center entry hall- the original owners had brown which was actually pretty cool, but I had to get my own colors in there.

First we did the ceiling a sky blue, and now in the process of painting walls a French yellow, very muted, golden color. The job is half done. This is terrible picture taken night time, but I am so thrilled, and the color is so soothing in night time and day, just had to post it

centerhallpaint45.jpg
 
Re: What color are your hallways (if your house is mostly ta

Beautiful Gardengloves, I love blue ceilings!
 
Re: What color are your hallways (if your house is mostly ta

Also, buy GE Reveal light bulbs. It's a must!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
GET 3 FREE HCA RESULTS JOIN THE FORUM. ASK FOR HELP
Jewelry Blog
PriceScope-Concierge-Ad
Find prime cuts.
Top