I painted the ceiling of my dining room red with matching red curtains. I have teak furniture in the room and made the mistake of matching the teak color with paint color--it is now just way way too dark. What to do?
Tends to be tricky to match paint colours to natural wood since one is homogenous and the other varied. If you like the colour scheme otherwise, I'd advise adding strong indirect artificial lighting to give drama (reflected off the walls or ceiling). Be careful with the colour of the light and avoid compact fluorescents which give a rather dead wash of light, or cool (bluish) LEDs which would kill the teak colour and red. Halogen lights would be good for these colours, but use quite a lot of energy. If you use LEDs, try to find one of the few that have good red colour rendering; most don't even if they have a high general colour rendering (CRI) rating.
In addition, mirrors, light-coloured paintings or a wall-hanging could help.
I'd recommend painting the ceiling white again, it will take a while and many coats probably, but you will add height and light back into the room. Other than that the room sounds very nice, just overkill on the red!
Dale Loth Architects
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