Painting room white - what about picture rail?

sweaty_betty

Hi there - I'm looking for a bit of style/colour advice.

I have a room that is quite dark, so I'm in the middle of painting it white. However, it has a picture rail 18 inches or so from the top of the ceiling and it looks a bit odd to have that in white too.

It seems a shame to "waste" a feature like that by losing it by painting all the same colour, but I'm not sure what else to do. I've always thought that coloured woodwork looks a bit odd.

Any thoughts?

WestonDave

Rather than going for a "colour" you could go for black to make a monochrome look with the white, you could use a chemical stripper on it and stain it a wood colour of your choice (again a darker wood might be better as a pale one would disappear into the white). Alternatively maybe a metallic colour like silver. (You can get some quite effective metallic paints - we've used a Plastikote silver on our exposed radiator pipes which is quite effective although obviously you won't get a polished chrome effect out of a paint).

suisidevw

In our lounge have cream white on our walls and a period offwhite eggshell of on on our picture rails with brilliant white above and on ceilings. Looks great imo and I'd definitely always have a different colour above the rail than below it!

sweaty_betty

Thanks all - I've gone for the absolute white on the walls as the room is so dark.

All the other woodwork in the room is white (doors, door frames - including french doors, can't bear the thought of painting/stripping them! - and skirting boards) - would it look out of place to have a picture rail in a different colour?

cyclonebri1

I agree with post #2.:T

Don't do it in a highly contrasting colour, be subtle and use a beige/cream shade, anything more will bisect the room given same colour above and below.

suisidevw

sweaty_betty wrote: »

Thanks all - I've gone for the absolute white on the walls as the room is so dark.

All the other woodwork in the room is white (doors, door frames - including french doors, can't bear the thought of painting/stripping them! - and skirting boards) - would it look out of place to have a picture rail in a different colour?

Go for a light colour

DRP

i don't think you'd lose or waste the feature by having it all white - your'e not going to totally disguise it.

i think the relief, shadow and texture difference (e.g. matt walls vs. eggshell/satin/gloss rails) will accentuate the rail enough without overdoing it with a stand-out colour difference.

Gordon_Hose

We have a white room with picture rail and dado rail, both are white and they don't look odd.

McKneff

I would go completely the opposite and paint the rail black.....

trailingspouse

My bedroom is completely white, with matt emulsion on the walls and white gloss picture rail. It looks fab.

Gers

In our last place we had the walls below the picture rail off white (jasmine white I think ) and the small bit above and ceiling pure white. This was a good 'cap' to the room as the walls were very high.

The actual picture rail was painted the off white colour. Didn't notice it much as we had pictures hanging from it with picture rail hooks.

Really miss it in this place.