The Color Teal

When we moved into our house 7 years ago I knew we would have to repaint the dining room, but I was in no hurry since we never used the room. The walls were a mix of Jackson Pollock style painting in burnt orange, gold, and teal combined with a hand-painted floral border in the same color scheme. This was on top of wainscoting in a neutral shade of white (thankfully). I never did understand the purpose of the border; the room has crown molding and a tray ceiling.

It's the tray ceiling that is the true architectural feature of the room. It was painted teal with gold stencils. My husband and I agreed that it was really striking and probably something that we would keep when we eventually redid the room. This photo was taken when I was repainting the room. I left the entire tray area as is and set out to find fabrics and paints to coordinate with the woods and rest of the palate.

Olympic paints make coordinated paint schemes as part of the Audubon collection. I used one of them - Splendor - as the inspiration for my living room (see my earlier posts) and hallway. I liked the Grandeur collection as a starting point for the dining room because it has turquoise, teal, icy blue, and leafy greens. I found a couple of nice fabrics at Calico Corners Outlets. One was striped with turquoise, cream, beige, and chocolate brown. The other had a graphic print in cream and turquoise, was enough to recover two antique chairs that I restained.

For the walls I wanted to keep with a neutral color so it did not detract from the ceiling. I painted the walls a wheat-toned beige from Valspar. I actually picked two colors and tested them on the wall before making the choice - the lighter of the two colors.