@courton, I've been in a quandry since purchasing a sample pot of Lexicon as it was visibly blue although not so much in the quarter strength, but I too want a warm colour and not a cool colour. I have a sample of Dulux Light Rice quarter possibly for the walls and Dulux Natural White for the roof but I'm still not sure. I wanted to stick to brown tones as that is what seems to catch my eye and Light Rice is the lightest colour in the dulux colour wall in the browns and the Natural White simply tones in with it and no other reason. Will still have to wait till I can paint up a sample but I previously tried Stucco and Harbour Stone and both were a bit too caramely for me and too coloured if that makes sense, even though I have seen Stucco in a bedroom and kitchen and it looked great but just isn't working for me now that I've tried it myself. Interesting how you can see a colour in someone else's home and it looks great but when you try it yourself, you hate it!!! I have allot of windows and door ways and very little wall area and I don't want a jigsaw effect of colour running around these areas and be jumping out at me when I walk into the home, instead I want to have to look for the walls and barely see colour.

I think painting the walls lighter and brighter is the right move but don't be restricted to white necessarily - although that would be the safe option and you know for sure it would work! You could introduce a contrasting colour on the ceiling if the walls were white obviously dependent on your furnishings and other colour choices. How about a soft grey or "greige" as an alternative to the white? Finally, you could introduce a dado rail at approx 1m from the floor - painted white the same as cornice and ceiling and then paint the upper and lower sections in contrasting colours of say charcoal on the base and white above or 2 shades of the same colour.

Hi Maria, we love the wood but it is a little overwhelming in that space with the timber floor. A liming white is a great idea as mentioned by a few people here. This will let you have the best of both worlds, a lighter, brighter finish while still allowing the wood grain to show through. You could try Feast Watson Liming White Floor Finish (yes, it's not a floor but it has the size of a floor!) and build up the number of coats until you are happy with the amount of timber grain showing through. You'll probably need to give it a light sand first as it's most likely already got some type of coating on it. The other option would be to leave the walls as is and consider a large, light neutral coloured rug as pompom suggested on the timber floor and perhaps a good sized piece of art on the wall or white wall shelving instead of the dark side unit you have to reduce the amount of timber in the room.

We recently updated an apartment to sell and got great feedback from the buyers on the paint - Dulux 1/4 Lexicon low sheen on walls and Vivid White high gloss on doors, picture rails and trims.