Decorating Ideas
 

I have just bought a house. It was built in the 1940's. I am redoing most of the house but the living room is in pretty good shape so I am going to leave it alone for now. The only thing is that my living room has green carpeting. A shaggy lime green carpet. I love the carpet <so classic! lol> but I don't want to leave the walls white. I just don't know what color would be decent with that carpeting. The bedroom that leads off of the living room has beige carpeting and the kitchen has wonderful wood floors. Any ideas?

What about a tan/camel color? Maybe a shade reminiscent of the wood flooring?

WIth that carpet -- I'd say go with something neutral, but you don't want boring. Stay away from anything too dark. You want personality but not circus :) I'd look at the taupe-y colors, or like Monkey said--maybe a camel kind of color. Not beige or too light ---- more like sand. :)

I just did a two room addition -- the most fun (and the most scary) for me was choosing colors ---- up until then EVERY SINGLE wall was an "almost white" color--and the whole house has off white carpet. I LOVE having color!
But you'll want it to work well with the carpet, so go with a beautifiul background for it... I'd suggest getting a TON of "paint chip strips" from your local paint store / Lowes or the equivalent...
Enjoy --- have fun!!!

Id do the tan and then look into getting curtains or cushions in both tan and your color of carpet to blend them all in.
Back in those days they did alot of hard wood flooring,,,is there hard wood under that carpet?

Just finished painting the basement, cocoa color,,,I call it coffee with cream. A lil dark, but with white trim should be very warm.

Red is the natural complementary color to green on the color wheel. Not that you'd want red walls but I'm guessing if you like the lime green carpet, then you're not afraid to make bold choices when it comes to decorating. You could try a muted mauvish color, just a little on the violet side. Because purple and yellow are complemetary colors as well and lime green is probably more yellowish than blue-green, right? I think I'd stick to a very pale version of mauve though so that the carpet and the walls aren't competing for attention.

Consequently, you could do a paler version of the lime green on the walls. The laws of color harmony say try either complementary (directly opposite) or try the neighbor to the right or to the left of your color for a more tonal approach. Or just stick with different shades of the same color. So many choices!:D

Here's a link to a color wheel: http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/f...olorwheel.html

I suppose it all depends upon your soft furnishings, though.

ohhh... neutral walls... but rich (coffee with cream.. I like that) and maybe some darker furniture but dark RED pillows and accessories... there ya go!
:)

Thanks for the ideas. This is my first home so right now I have a lot of hand-me-down furniture. There is hard wood under the carpet but I'm in the middle of refurnishing three other rooms with wood floors. The sanding is driving me crazy so I plan on keeping the carpet until most likely July at least. I'm doing all the work myself with guidence from my fantastic father (independant woman and all). I do fully intend to have the hard wood in the living room as soon as possible. I was thinking along the pale sand colors so your suggestions were perfect! I have planned on working in red, it's my favorite color! Then I think tan-ish curtains with perhaps some tie backs that work in that green color.

I love color!!! I have some ideas if you want to go that way - I also went to bhg (better homes & garden) and did a virtual room with lime green carpet. I'm hoping my links will work.

I wouldn't go with mauve but more of a purple soft lilac color, a soft tuorquise color, a light periwinkle, a light green - when you see the virtual it might give you a better idea.



http://www.bhg.com/coloraroom/preview.jhtml?id=1706c799

http://www.bhg.com/coloraroom/preview.jhtml?id=17077459

http://www.bhg.com/coloraroom/preview.jhtml?id=1706f92b

http://www.bhg.com/coloraroom/preview.jhtml?id=1706b811


Rachelle

Thank you!

Are you planning to reupholster or slipcover your furniture? Or perhaps buy new stuff? If so, you may want to consider choosing a fabric that has some of the lime green in it, then pick up one of the other colors from the fabric when you choose your wall color. With lime green, it'll be a whole lot easier to choose the furniture coverings and then paint the walls to match, than to choose the wall color and hope you can find coordinating fabrics. :)

Okay...honest opinion here. :D

I am a costume designer as well as a dancer-and personally I would AVOID the bright red with the lime green. Red is the opposite on the color wheel of TRUE GREEN-as in Crayola green, and not lime. Lime green is more a mixture of green and yellow-and a loud version at that, so red isn't as complimentary.

You have adjoining hardwood floors, and you have a lot of beige/sand tones around as well. I would personally go with CREAM walls. Not white, but very light off white-then bring the sand/beige sort of tones in with curtains and maybe toss pillows and the like. Bring in darker brown tones with picture frames, maybe in some of the furniture, and so forth. I don't think the beige/sand walls AND curtains together would have the impact that cream walls/brown/tan curtains would have.

Also, you are going to bring in dashes of the lime green in as well, in other small areas....a funky looking vase...a throw pillow or two...small dashes here and there. The off white, and the browns are going to be your main tones in the room, the lime green the accent color-and then here and there in very small doses for a splash of color accent-I woul recommend ORANGE. Yes, Brady Bunch orange. Trust me on this one. ;)

I've seen combinations of lime green with a really icy light blue, very cute. Might suit the era of your house too. However I really like the ideas in the post above as well... Congrats on your new house.