This interior painting job in Port Orange went all in on color. The bathroom walls are a deep turquoise, the dining hall is split at the chair rail with turquoise below and white above, and the living room is a softer aqua.
Running one color family through several rooms is harder than it sounds. Each space gets different light. The same shade can look like three different paints. The photos below show how it came out room by room, and one of them was taken before the crew had packed up, so you will see tools still on the floor.
- Location
- Port Orange, FL
- Property
- Single family home interior
- Rooms
- Bathroom, dining hall, living room
- Work shown
- Finished
Finished room photos
All three rooms are finished. The living room photo was taken before cleanup, which is why tools are still on the floor.
How do you choose a bold paint color that works in every room?
Test it in the darkest room first. That is where a strong color goes deepest, and if you like it there, you will almost certainly like it everywhere else.
Turquoise is a good example. In a small bathroom lit by one fixture it reads rich, close to teal. In a room with a big window it lifts toward aqua. That is why a house like this one can carry related shades from room to room without looking like the sample wall at a paint store. Buy sample pots and paint a patch about two feet square on at least two walls, then look at it in the morning and again at night. Little chips on a card are misleading. A big patch on your own wall is not.
Stuck between two shades? Bring it up at the walkthrough. We can talk through how similar colors have behaved in other homes, and you can see more of them in our project portfolio.
Is a two tone wall with a chair rail worth it?
It is if the room is long or narrow, like the dining hall here. Splitting the wall breaks up one long run of color so the space feels less like a corridor.
The chair rail does the hard work. It gives a clean line where the two colors meet, so nobody has to cut a perfect edge freehand across a long textured wall. Texture is the catch. A wall with a heavy texture like the one above this rail holds paint in its low spots, so it takes more product and more care with the roller to cover evenly without thin patches showing through.
Darker color usually goes below the rail, because that half of the wall takes the scuffs from chairs and vacuums. Rails and baseboards are normally done in a harder, wipeable sheen for the same reason. We also do trim painting on its own if your walls are fine and only the rails and baseboards look worn.
Can bathroom walls handle a dark, saturated color?
Yes, with the right paint and good prep. Moisture ruins bathroom paint, not color.
Steam from the shower sits on the walls every day. On a flat, low sheen paint that leads to mildew spots and a finish that starts to peel near the ceiling. A satin or semi gloss product made for bathrooms stands up far better and can be wiped down. Then there is the edge along the tub surround. In the photo above, the white surround meets the turquoise wall in a straight vertical line, and that joint has to be caulked and cut cleanly so water cannot creep behind it. Deep colors also show lap marks more than pale ones. They usually need two full coats, rolled wet edge to wet edge.
For the full picture of how we handle a house, see our page on interior painting in Daytona Beach and Port Orange, or browse more residential projects.
Thinking about color for your own rooms?
We give free written estimates for interior repaints, room by room. Call Robert or send a request and we will come out to take a look.