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Q. I need advice on what I should do about paint. We have a mustard color in our kitchen that flows into the family room then the walls in there are a rust color and we have a olive green entertainment center. The couch is beige and we have two black chairs. I feel like I'm going to go crazy with all this color but the more I do to it the worse it looks. I wouldn't mind keeping the mustard color but I don't know what to do with the rest. Thank you
From: Kim, Florida, US

A. Please don't go crazy! If ever in doubt, keep it simple. My suggestion if you like the mustard in the kitchen is to keep that and change the family room. I would paint it a quarter strength of the mustard colour. (that means 3/4 white, and 1/4 mustard) This will make the spaces flow, mean that you entertainment center becomes a feature color and your space looks larger. The beige couch and black chairs should complement the scheme. Good luck! Thanks for visiting the site.

Q. I am just in the process of doing a rather major renovation to our home. I am taking out a wall between our living room and computer room to make a larger living room space. The problem is colour. At this time I cannot afford to change the carpet and it is a dusty rose colour. My husband likes the deep reds and I like the fall colours, oranges, rusts, golds and deep greens. Can you suggest wall, ceilings (not white) and trim colours? Thanks so much. From: Jeana, Ontario, Canada

A. This sounds like fun, and as usual the common cry from budding decorators, I like this and my husband likes that! How to come up with the compromise? I think as with any scheme you have to take into consideration your carpet. This is what you will see the most. So select a colour that works with that, either in harmony or contrast. You also need to consider your lighting. Does the room receive natural light, or rely on incandescent? When do you use the room? If you only use it at night, a deep tone of colour can be successful as it makes the room feel cosy and intimate using lamps to provide the light source, but as you are opening up walls to make more space, I feel that you are wanting to make the room feel larger. Therefore I feel that you should stick to a mid tone colour or less for your walls (ie the intensity scale from 1 - 10, with 1being black, 5 grey and 10 white) a 5, then you could use a darker tone for your trims (to incorporate your green or red) or a lighter tone, it depends what kind of look you are trying to create. Have a look at our excerpts from the Colour Tutorial for an idea or visit the color website. If you want a soft environment, I suggest tone on tone, ie selecting one colour and going either side of it for your trims. If you want more drama and movement in the scheme perhaps a Complementary or Split Complementary scheme, these add more colour to the room. Remember if selecting one of these choose one color as the base and the other(s) as an accent and sprinkle them throughout the room to keep the room in balance. I hope this helps.

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