This question just in…. (remember you can ask me anything if you are a newsletter subscriber) from Joanne:
Hi Ms. Conrad,
I am currently doing the inside of my house. My style is primitive
country. I am currently putting wainscoting up.
I need some ideas for colour. The colours I am attracted to are
barn red, blue and mustard yellow. I love these colour.
My problem is what colour to paint the wainscoting.
I am really attracted to red, but my daughter thinks I should paint it
the mustard colour. I have an open style house so I need the colour
to flow from room to room. I have been trying to get ideas off the net
on Rate My Space, but there isn't too much when you look for wainscoting
ideas. I do have a fireplace also.
Our house is a four-split level so I need the wainscoting to flow.
I am not crazy about white wainscoting as I prefer more warm tones.
Thank you so much,
Joanne
Here is my quick answer:
Hi...
Here is my quick - without "seeing" your house response. 
I've used hunter green - cobalt blue - and barn red in my home.
The only color I have "never" gotten tired of or found great ways
to decorate with is "Barn Red".
Think about this... if someone were to walk into your home for the
first time - what color would you want to be the predominate color?
The "One" color that they would see "some of" in every room?
I have red in every room. Some is on the walls. - some rooms it's just
the furniture and some rooms it's just the accent accessories. It all
flows.
I found that "RED" is the easiest of the country colors to decorate
with.
And yellow? Ewww.
Debra
I’ve always lined my hallway with family photographs. But… it never really made a design statement. The photos were mostly colored photos – some portraits and some are snapshots… but all were a colorful mish-mash.
The frames were never cohesive either… I had wood, plastic, ceramic and metal frames of various sizes and states of dis-repair. All in all – not pleasing to the eye. It just didn’t make anyone want to stop and look… which is really the purpose.
I’m not a huge fan of displaying family photos in every nook and cranny of my home. I have a few on display in the bookcases and of course we often have a collection plastered to the refrigerator… but I’m not a “put a group on the piano” type of decorator.
I’ve always loved the idea of grouping black and white photos into a larger “unit” to make an impact… but now I’m working on this idea for my own hallway.
I set out Decorating The Hallway With Black and White Photographs.
I have generations of old photographs that are very personal to our family – and now they will be shown in an organized manner instead of a hodge-podge. The idea is to group each generation together so that one can view the family line in order.
Plus – I’ll need to have a group for friends… and a group for more current snapshots that have captured a memorable moment. It’s sort of like scrapbooking for the walls.
I don’t want to have all the frames the same size… I like variety. Having all the pictures in black frames with a white mat will look stunning and by digitizing all the photos and printing them in black and white… well you get the idea of the huge impact this will have. I think this idea will make a huge difference in the decorative impact as well as the personal gratification of seeing visitors actually want to wall the hallway.
I just read a great tip about choosing the color of your walls to best show off your black and white photographs. The walls should have a deep (doesn’t have to be dark) wall color.
I’ve already painted my hallway with something close to Glidden’s Honey Beige… but shades lighter. I can see that I should have picked a color with more depth of color. The changing of hallway colors will have to wait.
I did purchase a slew of new Frames in a Box Set. To keep the costs down – I also purchased a few cans of black spray paint to revamp some of the old frames.
I scanned in the color images and used “remove color” or “gray scale”. This type of tool is available in almost all of the computer image refining programs.
It’s easy… but you will want to print in high quality and use photo paper to get the clearest sharpest images. You can also take a pile of photos to your local copy shop and have them do it for you.
This project is time consuming – so I’m doing it in stages. It’s fun to see the hallway looking more like a gallery instead of a disarray of bad decorating. I look so talented!
Brown Hallway Photo From MarthaStewart.com
Blue and White Hallway From style-files.com
Black And White Picture Wall With Old Frames
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