Hello,
Ive enjoyed reading your blog. My fiance and I bought a farmhouse in New England (4000 sf!) in dire need of affection…It has a beautiful foyer with 20′ high ceilings and adjacent great room.
We would like to do a warm gold color, not too yellow and not too tan. I have swatches of several colors on the wall and am leaning towards [Benjamin Moore’s] Dunmore Cream, Pittsfield Buff or Monroe Bisque. I do like Waterbury cream but it looked a bit too heavy in a space that large….
The adjacent formal dining room will be done in Lenox Tan. I did see your blog about painting the ceilings something other than white, we have 8′ ceilings and I’m concerned it might make the ceiling look lower…I plan to do the trim in a white with a hint of cream color and chair rail….
Thank you,
Heather
A: Heather, congratulations on your new house. I love those herringbone floors.
An important question, based on your description of the house. Are you really going for a classic New England farmhouse feel, with all of the cozy charm that implies (as in the picture below)? Or would you like the house to feel more sophisticated?
If “authentic farmhouse” is what you’re after, I’d say that the colors you’re considering are too light. You’d mentioned Benjamin Moore‘s HC-31 Waterbury Cream as too dark for the entry foyer – I disagree with that. I’d even suggest something darker: HC-12 Concord Ivory, which is much more gold. (There are 
pictures of that color in action in this post.)
With a gold-tan color in the foyer and halls, I suggest a stronger color in the dining room; Lenox Tan is too similar.
Your strategy of sticking with Benjamin Moore’s Historic Colors (HC) series is a good one, since the colors all work well together. But expand your search to include Benjamin Moore’s Affinity Series (AF) also. The company launched that series a year ago, and its muted colors work very well with the HC series.
I’d love to see you use one of the AF purples in your dining room. Consider AF-630 Kalamata, or AF-650 Caponata, which is a deep purplish brown. If purple is too scary, consider a straight dark brown or a close-to-navy blue.
With any of these dark wall colors, please make sure your trim and ceiling colors aren’t too light. Your HC-44 Lenox Tan could work well, and then choose a cream for the ceiling.
Another color strategy that I think of as “colonial” or “farmhouse” is to do a darker COLOR on the trim. For example, if you used a lighter purple on the dining room walls, you could paint the trim a forest green. In the picture below, medium blue paint gives the trim a little kick; white trim wouldn’t have been nearly as interesting next to the red floor and light blue walls.
Poor thing – you wanted help deciding between cream, cream, and cream, and instead are told to paint your foyer gold and your dining room purple. Well, it’s not called bossy color for nothing, I suppose. If “farmhouse” is what you’re after, stronger colors are what I suggest. Good luck, Heather!
The fireplace picture is of the gorgeous Dorset Inn in Vermont. Going there is a quintessential New England experience, and its restaurant is out of this world. The rocking chair and orange bedroom pictures are from Porches Inn in North Adams, Massachusetts, right across from Mass MoCA. Porches consistently receives “beyond fabulous” ratings in travel publications, and they’re quite bold with their interior colors.