I desperately need to add some color to my house. We have a very open floor plan, (kitchen, dining room and living room all together) so I feel like I would have to paint the whole downstairs to make it look right. Everything is pretty neutral right now and I'm tired of it! Does anyone have any ideas on painting just one area of an open floor plan house?

My kitchen and family room are all one big room, I wanted to paint the 2 areas different colors. DH bought pieces of wood that have designs on them (I think they are really for crown molding), he painted them the same color as all the trim in our house and glued them to the wall (vertically) to seperate the 2 rooms. They stick out from the wall about 1/2 inch, just enough to make it look like two separate rooms.

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We have an open floor plan and what we did was find a color chip (with about 5 colors on it) at Lowes or Home Depot and then painted some rooms lighter and others darker. In this house, we painted the kitchen & Dining room darker and the living room/family room a lighter color. You know the colors will go together because they are all in the same family. We tend to like the deeper beiges & tans. They add color without taking too much risk and then you can add other colors like reds, greens or blues with fabric. HTH

I have a similar open floor plan and I painted the LR a light blue, the kitchen is one shade darker down the color chip, and the dining room is a green that is in the same intensity as the kitchen. The green and blue still do very well together.

We used 2 shades of sage green (one fairly pale and one a couple of shades darker). We have a long wall that carries through the living room/dining room/kitchen, and a long wall that carries through the living room/dining room. Then a short wall that divides the LR/DR with open space on each side. Using the 2 shades of green, we painted one long wall the lighter green, along with the other 3 walls in the DR, and the other long wall the darker green, along with the other 3 walls in the LR. The kitchen was painted a pale yellow. I LOVE IT!

I also know people who have painted their kitchen one color, and the DR a very different dramatic color, and it works in their house.

Some friends of ours have a sage green eat-in breakfast nook and dining room area that's painted a sage green, but the open kitchen directly across is painted a winey lavendar. It actually looks really nice!

Don't be afraid to experiment with color. If you don't like it after you prime, then pick a different paint color. Good luck!

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"Things that matter the most must never be at the mercy of things that matter least." Goethe

I have the same open-floor plan in my house. My living room and kitchen are totally open and bleed into each other. I decided, because of the weird placement of our outside door, and where the floor changes from tile (in kitchen) to carpet (living room), that I'm going to paint it all a caramel/camel color and then accent with different colors in each room to make them separate. ... Living room: Caramel/brick/sage // Kitchen: caramel/brick/navy ... Also, the living room accents are like ivy/plant leaves and the kitchen, I'll use fruit & food accents. I thought and thought for the longest time on how to separate the two, but I just gave up. The caramel color will go well with the woodwork, trim, carpet, sofa, area rug, and countertops.. It works out well. Maybe caramel wouldnt be a color change for you, but all of my walls are WHITE (have been for 3 years now) and it'll be a beautiful change for us.

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Do an accent wall--RED is wonderful. Ours is like that and the living room and kitchen are open the wals are called canteen green kinda a deep mossy green and I have a red wall in my kitchen, I wish I had done my long wall red. My sister is getting a new house with almost the same floor plan and her walls are gonna be kinda a beige--taupe color with an eggplant color on the long wall joining the kitchen and living room. Then she had sage green couch and accents.