Brown Paint Ideas for the Dining Room

Dining rooms often have a sense of elegance and formality. You can use brown paint to enhance or soften this feel, depending on the shades you choose. Accent colors also play an important role in your room's decor, so consider your furniture and decor colors and whether you want contrasting trim when choosing a brown color scheme. Does this Spark an idea?

Chocolate Brown

Deep chocolate browns add a touch of modern class to your dining room, especially when set off with cream-colored draperies, furniture and trim. Use a brown with some sheen to it, such as a satin finish paint, to help reflect light and keep the room from appearing too dark. If your floor and ceiling are light colored, go ahead and paint all of the walls with the chocolate brown. If you have dark wood flooring, add a cream- or peach-colored area rug to brighten the room. Accent your deep brown walls with decor in bright red, yellow and orange for an autumnal look that ties in well with the brown theme.

Dark and Light

Keep your dining room formal with a dark brown on the lower portion of your walls, but brighten up the room with a lighter color on the upper walls. Choose the darkest brown you can find that still appears brown, rather than black, and paint the bottom 3 to 3-1/2 feet of each wall that shade. Add a piece of horizontal trim, also called a chair rail, to divide the lower and upper walls, then paint the upper portion khaki, tan or wheat brown. Paint the dividing trim one of the two main colors; using the dark color will give the lower walls the look of wainscoting, while using the lighter color will make the upper portion of the walls stand out more. Balance this color combination with burgundy, moss green or sage green decor. For a slightly different look, paint one whole wall either the dark or light brown, then use the upper/lower split for the remaining walls. Use the solid color wall as a background for large artwork or a china hutch.

Suede

Paint one or more walls in a leathery medium brown using a suede faux finish technique. Books and classes on this technique are often available through home improvement stores, and some stores sell suede paint kits with all the instructions you need. You can paint your whole dining room using this method, or use it for a single accent wall or the upper portions of walls divided by chair rails. For the lower portion or non-accent walls, choose a pale brown with yellow undertones, such as wheat or buff. This will keep the room bright and soften the formal feel, but the suede texture will keep the sense of elegance and create a warm, inviting look. Fall reds and oranges make great accents for this color scheme.