Separating a Living Room With Paint

Choose the location of the boundary between the two rooms. This could be a place where the room turns a corner into another connected room, or an arched doorway, or something similar. In some cases, there may be no natural boundaries between the living room and the other room—so you will have to invent one.

Choose the color that you’ll be painting the living room and the color that you’ll be painting the other room. These colors should have a relationship, because they’ll be seen side by side on the wall. Look at the color wheel for colors that have a relationship to one another. Colors found side by side on the color wheel are called analogous colors, whereas colors found opposite one another are called complementary colors. Try to avoid colors found opposite one another on the color wheel, because these high-contrast colors are very dramatic when seen together and the combination of these two paint colors in one location might distract from the rest of your decorating scheme. Look for low-contrast colors, or use combinations of neutrals like dark gray and light gray or gray blue and beige.

Mask off the boundary between the living room and the other room, so that when you paint the living room you will not go over the border between the living room and the adjoining room. Use painter’s tape.

Paint the living room as you would any room. Be careful at the masked border between the two rooms. Wait for the paint to dry, then remove the painter’s tape and mask off the living room from the adjoining room. Use an angled sash brush for the edging between the living room and the adjoining room.

Paint the adjoining room. Be careful at the masked border between the living room and the adjoining room, even though you’ve masked off the edge of the living room with painter’s tape. Painter's tape is not 100 percent effective in masking one color from another, although it does help. Wait for the paint to dry and then remove the painter’s tape.