"Tweaking" color
After receiving some excellent feedback from you all on my friend's fireplace make-over, I felt compelled to play around with some of your suggestions in photoshop.
I always like to think about how every challenge has multiple solutions, and try out several before-hand, when possible. Honestly, I think we've got so many materials and tones going here, it's a challenge to unify them all. Sometimes, it takes a few tries before you hit on the right fix. This is no exception. As Annie from bossy color would say, that first solution just wasn't "bossy" enough! This is a great example of try, try again.
color. But this is delving into additionally-painted walls, something my friends wanted to avoid.
4th solution: Here, we have painted out the top arch then darkened the mantel to a deep brown. With or without the darker seating area, still feels a bit too heavy to me. Friends, I say, rip it out like reader Washington Cube suggested!
Bringing in a bigger piece of art to replace the clock will also help- perhaps another lovely quilt with blues and some browns to tie everything together?
So, what do you think, now that you've had a chance to see your brainstorming suggestions put to the test? Let's discuss!
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8 comments:
Welcome back! Oh I love a good dilemma! Personally, I like your first solution as it's nicely balanced. I agree that some artwork with some additional colors would really bring some interest to the space and ditch the clock.
Fourth one down - the wall around the bookcases painted to match the lighter color of the fireplace.
Cutting in around the bookcases would be some work but that's what Frog tape is for. :~) Unless there's more wall to paint than what we can see around the FP/bookcase area, I don't see it being a big deal to paint.
Took me longer to write this post than it would to paint that little bit of wall area. bwahahaha!
I like it with the arch painted out and the mantle the lighter brown. I think a bigger, more colorful piece of artwork would really help the space as the eye would be drawn to something other than the questionable architecture. And maybe the shelves around the television could be used more for display than storage (it looks like they have videos in their boxes sitting there now?) I still think that the room would really be helped by some curtains as well.
HI Rachel, I like what you have done with the process of exploring some options, and the comments are always interesting!
What I am seeing (my computer?)is a lot of yellow/mustard tone in the various "brown" paint colors.
An idea:"tweak" away from the browns, and towards the more grayed/stony hues of the seat bench and the fireplace face. Not a green-based Stone color and not too pink, just a warm gray type of color, having the area near the floor be deeper, the mantle a little lighter, and the upper part lightest of the 3 areas. Same mid-range color around the book cases, there's not much actual wall there it seems. (cut in as FunColors said).
RE; the arch--Don't emphasize the arch center, especially don't bring in blue. If you do want to do something to bring out the shape, use the slightly-deeper tone of the new grayed color, sort of creating the effect of an emphasized shadow.
Then bring strong blue(s) into the arch with some great pottery, sort of sculptural, but not a painting.
Time to move the clock somewhere else.
I like things simple and clean: thus I would say solution #2.. I'm not crazy about so much mustard color in most of these sollutions: and actually, the dark mantle in #4 is fine too, but again, keep surrounding areas clean and light.
Yes, I agree re. ditching the clock! Add something a little more interesting and..... colorful?
4th solution on the right. I see it as not too washed out and not too heavy. The elements themselves are quite dominant in size and I think the last set of solutions is best, the one on the right, best.
I find myself looking at this from a different persepective. If paint is your friend's ONLY fix at the moment, then I vote #2-let that wall become invisible!!
However, if we can play with photoshop, I would try framing the area on the sides of the fireplace with the mantel material and bring it upwards towards the mantel but now quite to the top of it.
The built-ins look skimpy next to the f/p, and I would also like to play with framing with some moulding.
I'm seeing less of a color issue and more of an architectural issue that may be helped with some decorating solutions.
One more thought...have you tried hanging a quilt or art...that covers the niche so it disappears completely?
What a fun project to play with in photoshop!
Well, the lighter "upper" mantle wins for sure, if we are still in that place where we can't change the entire wall color. And I do like the look of a stronger colored "lower" mantle, but I think, like Barbara, I'd like to see less brown overall. (It reads more reddish brown on my monitor.) I'd like to see more of a blackish-brown or as Barbara mentioned, something more grey and "stoney". But, if I had my way entirely, I'd like to see the whole wall painted in a deeper shade of SOMETHING, because I'm not loving the high contrast in the whole vignette. It was nice to see the darker wall you photoshopped kind of fade out the bookcases...I just think it was still too much yellow, red or orange brown (depending on whose monitor you're looking at.) Or, like many have said, take down the monstrosity all together!
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