The sitting room and dining room are to the right and left of the entrance. The lobby goes straight back to the family room, breakfast area, and kitchen across the back of the house. There’s possibly a deck opening off that area.

Some part of all those areas can be seen from each room, and the hall walls continue upstairs to a hall from which each bedroom is plain. To keep on our example with cream woodwork, the hall and halls could be painted a pearl grey, light tan, soft gold, or deeper cream. The woodwork is maybe a gloss or semi-gloss and the walls and ceiling a flat paint. Since ceilings reflect light down on folks, they are generally best in cream or off-white. I once saw a dining room with an indirectly lit octagonal tray ceiling painted to appear like creamy clouds in a peachy nightfall sky that made each dinner guest look like she had an ideal complexion. The lounge opening off our hall could be a solid color (maybe sage green or deeper tan) or it would look really hunky with a vertically striped wall paper (cream and grey, cream and green, or cream and tan are good probabilities).

The dining room is inclined to have a chair rail.

A darker color could look good below the chair rail (again sage green, grey, gold or tan would work) with a lighter tint of an identical color above. If a solid color were selected for the sitting room, the dining room could handle a deep red below the chair rail and a cream paper with a narrow red stripe above it. Heaps of crystal and mirrors would look superb in a room like that. Today’s open floor plans make it significant that rooms work together.