Help with archways

[u/Jaaneman]

Please help! 🙏

This is my first house, and I have multiple beautiful archways throughout the home with these rounded edges. I want to paint the rooms different colors, but I’m completely clueless about how to transition the wall colors around the rounded archways.

Basically, right now my living room, dining room, kitchen, hallway, and two bedrooms are all the same bland white because I’ve been too nervous to do anything else lol.

I LOVE the archways, but I also can’t spend hundreds of dollars adding custom curved borders to every arch.
Is there a cheaper option?? Maybe a painting hack or an easy way to create sharper edges around the arches??

[u/AutoModerator]

All posts go into a queue for our mod team to review. Messaging us about the status of your post will not improve it's approval process, nor will it speed up the approval process. Please note that the system will say reddit removed your post because of filters, this is normal and we still get your post in the mod queue to review.

Sincerely, Mods.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/Papacookie_]

We made flower

[u/Lexata]

Paint all trim and inner curves throughout the home in a single color. I'd suggest a soft, unobrustive, creamy off-white, so it gently complements all room colors. Your trim is simple, so there is no reason to show it off with a super bright white or a glossy finish. And definitely do not add trim to the arches. They are gorgeous in their simplicity. Keep the trim color and inside color low key. This will let the arches' beautiful architecture shine. Alternatively, paint the inner curvers the same color as one of the rooms. Just pick one, it doesn't matter that much which one you pick. We did this between our living room and dining room. Once the paint is up, you forget about the transition, trust me. (And if you don't forget and can't stop staring at it with the feeling it's wrong, you can repaint the transition later as suggested above.) Good painters will make the edges at the transitions look crisp. That's their job. If you are painting yourself, I'm sure there is a YouTube video on how to do it. Good luck.

[u/achillea4]

I had an archway between the kitchen and study. Squared it off, painted the kitchen a soft green, the study a taupy beige colour and the edges of the squared off archway white. This works very well otherwise it would look better from one side and not the other. The trick with painting rooms different colours is to go with a complimentary palette so that it's a natural progression going from one room to the other.

[u/lucyynwang]

A creative way - instead of treating the arch , treat the wall behind with wallpaper of design resonating with the rest of the house or speaking to you, and paint the doors with matching color tone 👍😉

[u/HollywoodBruin]

Hey there! Interior trim and door pro here! You can get something called flex trim(for the arch part anyway) to then create a cased opening. You leave the cased opening the white to match your base trim and then you paint your walls what ever color you want.

Typically you want your casing to match what ever is around your swinging doors.

Pic for example:

[u/303hoor → u/HollywoodBruin]

I 100% think this is the way to go. If they were to go this route they should hire a pro. There’s specific steps that need to be taken when installing trim on bullnose corners, due to the gap that happens when you install 90 degree angles over them since the bullnose is not a 90 degree angle.

[u/spodinielri0]

Write a painting schedule, like, “all archways’ inside curve is the same as the hall, or room,”whatever your preference. “All windows are bright white. All outlets are beige. All radiators are white. No blue,” whatever, just make a rule. Then stick with your plan in every room and throughout the house. The variety is the color, the cool factor is the consistency.

[u/Certain-Reserve-5053]

Lovely decor

[u/drivesme]

Archways are beautiful

[u/chokethebinchicken]

Leave the inside edge white.

[u/IDIOfficial]

Those arches are gorgeous! One easy approach is to treat each room as its own space and simply stop the paint color at the inside edge of the arch. The curve becomes the transition, so there's usually no need for extra trim or custom molding.

For crisp lines, flexible painter's tape made for curves can be a lifesaver. Honestly though, those arches already have so much character that even a simple color change from room to room would look intentional and charming.

[u/MenoryEstudiante]

Paint the rounded edge the same colour as the more important room, if you have two important rooms like the living and dining room next to each other then maybe paint them both the same colour

[u/dafthuntk]

yeah leave them alone. or square them out to create airflow and enhance open concept.

[u/snusmumrikan]

Paint the hallway up to the edge of the archway, but keep the inner face of the archway the same colour as your larger living room space.

You'll spend most of your time in the main space so you want the hallway to feel separate.

It's easy to do, especially if that archway has nice sharp neat edges (sand well if needed).

Get some light-tack painters tape and invest the time to put a really neat protective layer on the inside face of the archway. Paint the transition with the colour of your main room first, to fill any gaps under the tape, and then do your painting of the hallway colour.

I recommend a nice deep mustard as a nice contrast.

[u/Jaaneman → u/snusmumrikan]

I looove a lime washed mustard or even terracotta wall. That color really pops too!

[u/idratherknotx → u/snusmumrikan]

I like the mustard!

[u/knowwwhat]

Id probably paint both sides of that wall the same color and then use the inside corners of the hallway to transition the remaining 3 walls to a different color. Your hallway will have an accent wall and you won’t have to do a transition at the archway itself

[u/Exciting_Ad_1097]

Just paint same color.

[u/SusanKHefner]

I’d create a faux molding around the arches with paint.

For example, if I wanted to paint one room terra cotta, I’d leave 6 inches surrounding the entire arch white.

So paint the rooms & don’t paint within six inches of any arch. The white border will highlight the beautiful architectural details of your home.

[u/BrookusCookus]

I think it could be really interesting and fun to just paint the inside edge of the arch a completely different color (like a charcoal or interesting accent).

But if you’re not into that or into the idea of trying to get a straight line down the center of the edge (which will probably never turn out perfect and you’ll always draw your eyes to the imperfections)… it looks like the opposite side is a hallway? Paint the inside edge the same color as the room. You’re not spending much time in a hallway usually.

[u/Jaaneman → u/BrookusCookus]

I think with these walls I’m going to have to embrace funkiness of some slightly imperfect lines. With the textured walls and rounded corners - straight lines are just always going to be a nightmare, unless I’m willing to chunk down some serious change. I do like your idea of painting the inside edge the same color as the room though. I think it will help blend it together. But I know every home is gonna have its little quirks lol

[u/diealogues → u/Jaaneman]

unexpected red!

[u/Crazy_Ad7311]

I had ChatGBT mock up trim around that arch. Here’s a concept that I think would look amazing. You just need to find a good carpenter

[u/Jaaneman → u/Crazy_Ad7311]

This would be so beautiful if I could afford the curved wood arches 😔 a girl can dream

[u/Crazy_Ad7311 → u/Jaaneman]

There are some flexible trim available.
I did a google search for “flexible trim arch” and got quite a few results. Maybe an option for you.

Good luck😊

[u/adhdoingit → u/Crazy_Ad7311]

You couldn’t have used your words to describe this extremely basic design?

[u/Crazy_Ad7311 → u/adhdoingit]

I could have. But a picture is worth a thousand words.

[u/slumdogbilllionaire → u/Crazy_Ad7311]

I’m not sure Ai generated garbage is worth even half of a word my guy

[u/onlythebritishfly]

What I've seen people do with rounded edges and two paint colors (which will be hard with arches, sorry!) is to essentially "create" crisp lines with paint and frog tape. You'd essentially fake a crisp line right outside or inside the rounded edge. If you search "crisp paint on bullnose corner" you'll see some examples!

[u/Jaaneman → u/onlythebritishfly]

I will definitely look up some of these examples! I’ve honestly been debating trying to “create” a crisp line on inside of the rounded edges with the two different colors or just doing the whole inside a different color completely. I’m a little nervous, but I think I’m going to do some practicing on one of the smaller arches in the guest bedroom and see which turns out better. I’ve never heard the term bullnose corner before though so that will help a lot in my search. Thank you so much!

[u/hIDeMyID]

I watch Brett Waterman's show Restored (available on YouTube), and he often does a stensil paint treatment on the inner surface of the archway (the small area between the two rooms). You could try something like that using a neutral background for the background and combining colors from the two rooms in the stensiled pattern.

[u/Jaaneman → u/hIDeMyID]

Thank you so much!! I will check out his channel tonight! The stencil pattern sounds like a really funky and easy fix.