An interior house painting project in Webster New York with a red dining room

When your interior painting project includes a dining room it’s a great opportunity to add a dark color to the mix. Dark colors tend to make rooms, especially dining rooms, seem a bit smaller and cozier. Think warm family get-togethers, intimate dinners, add some dining room table decoration, maybe a bottle of red wine, and the next thing you know you’re painting your dining room red. As one homeowner in Webster, New York recently opted for red as part of their interior repaint we decided to look at why this bold color always seems to land in the dining room.

Interior house painting trends come and go, everything used to be white everywhere, then it was all warmer tans, then back to white, then monochrome colors, it’s frankly hard to keep up. The risk is that you go so personalized that you might have trouble if you ever want to sell your house. People tend to be cautious even as they are trying to personalize their space.

The red dining room on the other hand seems to swing in and out of style with real frequency. First red is fine, then anything else, then somehow we always end up back at red. Why? Well think about how many restaurants you have ever been in that are painted red, the lights are usually down low, and there is a sense of intimacy even in what is really a large room filled with tables. Dark colors really do create a cozy environment, and red (so they say) is conducive to conversation and stimulating people’s appetites. Most people might task the wine and food with that mission and not put that responsibility on the walls but you have to admit there is something to it.

Red dining rooms also have a historic track record, find a picture of an old mansion or castle, you are going to see red walls in the dining room or maybe red wallpaper, a red patterned rug, some old fox hunting scenes framed over a fireplace, you know the look. As it turns out that whole look works at any scale.

You don’t live in a castle and your dining room only seats six? Fair enough, but also consider when you REALLY use that dining room. It’s all about the dining room when you are hosting a holiday get-together. Thanksgiving and Christmas are the go-to holidays to put your dining room to use for its intended purpose, forget the other 363 days a year when it’s the sewing room, project room, and boxes-of-stuff-on-the-table room.

When it’s time for the dining room to do its thing AND you have a red one, it’s easy to decorate for those two holidays. Red is part of any fall palette of colors, add a pumpkin and some fall leaves for a centerpiece and bingo, everything matches the walls. For Christmas add a bowl of red and green ornaments, maybe some gold garland around the mantle, a pair of red candles and all that’s missing is St. Nick. That’s the red dining room earning its keep, and that’s when it makes instant sense that you painted it red in the first place.

Now, for the remainder of the year, it still has to play nice with the rest of your interior so when you think red don’t think fire-engine red. Think of a red that can still flow from one room to the other. You might keep some continuity by sticking to just one trim color everywhere regardless of room color. In the picture here you can see the trim is white throughout the house and the red is a maroon that has some relationship to the tan you see elsewhere.

If you are almost on-board but reluctant to take the leap consider doing a single interior wall in red, put your sideboard up against it, add a pair of candles framing a picture and you have split the difference. Just make sure the picture is a harvest or hunt scene…

When you’re ready to tackle your interior painting project in Webster, NY or the greater Rochester area contact us at CertaPro Painters® of West Rochester and let us start by offering you a free color consultation and a free estimate, we’ll have your interior ready in time for the holidays and those other 363 days of the year as well.