Living Room Painting

Living room painting covers the walls, ceiling, trim and doors of the room your family uses most. Safe Choice Painting moves and covers your belongings, repairs dings and cracks, cuts clean lines at the ceiling and trim, and rolls even coats. We help you pick colors that work in your room's light, morning and evening.

What living room painting includes

• Protection. Floors are covered, belongings are moved to the center of the room and wrapped, and wall hangings come down.
• Repairs. Nail holes, dents from doors and chairs, and hairline cracks over windows are filled and sanded.
• Ceilings first. If the ceiling is part of the job, it is painted before the walls so spatter never lands on finished walls.
• Walls. Edges are cut by hand at the ceiling and trim, then the walls are rolled in full passes.
• Trim and doors. Baseboards, window casings and doors get a harder, washable sheen.
• Cleanup. Everything goes back where it was.

Choosing a living room color

Light changes a color more in a living room than anywhere else in the house, because these rooms often have the most windows. North-facing rooms get cool, even light, and warm colors keep them from feeling gray. South and west rooms get strong, warm afternoon light that can make yellows and beiges look orange. We paint large sample swatches on two or three walls so you can see them at different times of day. Look at them at night under your own lamps before you decide.

Accent walls

An accent wall works best on a wall that already draws the eye: the fireplace wall, the wall behind the sofa or a wall with built-in shelves. Pick one with a clean corner on both ends so the color stops neatly. For brick fireplaces, see brick fireplace painting.

Which paint finish for a living room?

• Walls: matte or eggshell. Matte hides small flaws best; eggshell wipes clean more easily.
• Ceiling: flat, which hides joints and bumps.
• Trim and doors: satin or semi-gloss.

Big windows matter here too. The Gypsum Association's GA-214 standard describes strong side light from windows as critical lighting, which shows every bump and seam on a wall. In a bright living room, a lower sheen on the walls hides more. Our paint sheen guide covers each room in the house.

Living rooms in 1980s and 1990s homes

Many living rooms we paint are in homes from those decades. In Lake Dallas about 39 percent of homes were built from 1980 to 1999, and at Lake Kiowa about 43 percent, by Census estimates. Living rooms from that era can have tall or vaulted ceilings, plant ledges and lots of trim, which add setup and brush time. See our Lake Dallas service area and exterior painting at Lake Kiowa. For two-story walls and vaulted ceilings, our high ceiling painting page explains how those spaces are reached.

Built-ins and mantels

Built-in bookcases and wood mantels can be painted to match the trim or left in their stain. Painting stained wood takes a deglosser or light sanding and a bonding primer before the finish coats, so the paint does not scratch off. Shelves are done last and left to dry fully before anything goes back on them.

Color flow into nearby rooms

Living rooms usually open onto a hall, entry or kitchen. Keeping those rooms in the same color family, or using one trim color through all of them, makes the house feel connected. If you want a different color in the next room, pick one with the same undertone, warm or cool, so the change looks planned.

Ceilings in the living room

A fresh wall color next to an old, yellowed ceiling makes the ceiling look worse, so most living rooms get the ceiling painted too. Water stains from past leaks get a stain-blocking primer first. Our ceiling painting page covers stains, cracks and textured ceilings.

Planning the job

High walls, heavy trim and a lot of patching all add time. Our answer on how long it takes to paint a room explains the factors. Open floor plans need a planned stopping point, like an inside corner or a cased opening, where one color ends and the next begins. We mark those points with you at the walkthrough.

Nearby

• Interior painting
• Ceiling painting
• High ceiling painting
• Bedroom painting
• Wallpaper removal