The walls look close to black when the lights are off. Actually I rarely see the room lit up like in the pictures. The pic is with the shades open and a very powerful D-SLR external flash. I did not want to have multi-color walls, I think the last batch that was mixed at lowes didn't mix the same as the others. However it's all good (and dark) for movies.

I have the Optima HD-80 with a 106" diagonal Elite screen