Hospitals are, by their nature, institutional. White walls, chrome finishes and the smell of bleach seem to be synonymous with a hospital stay.

But at Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center, things are slowly changing. On Monday morning, Scott Carroll, director of facility services for Good Samaritan, held up a board covered with soothing earth tones and the colors of sea and sky, the master palette for redecorating rooms across the building.

"We're using a warmer color scheme, softer textures and using sustainable materials," he said.

The three color schemes - with names such as Douglas Fir and Big Leaf Maple - will be added to the color scheme as time and space permit. Working with the realities of time and space are a challenge for any hospital that's operating at full capacity. Redecorating an entire room - including retiling the bathroom and replacing counter surfaces - can take five weeks, which is why transforming patients' rooms from white-walled monochromatic to autumnal warm is taking so much time. So far, 46 of 98 patient rooms have been upgraded.

"As materials sunset, we'll replace them with the newer products," Carroll said. That means there's a bit of a piecemeal look, with newer carpets in rooms that have old paint, or new painted walls with old vinyl floors. And because laminate countertops are the most-long lasting, and the most expensive to replace, they'll probably be the last to be switched out.

But the changes completed so far have brought enthusiastic approval from nurses, doctors and patients.

"In the hospital industry there's been a record amount of construction across the nation," Carroll said. "And in new construction or in significant upgrades, we're moving away from the institutional look and feel."

In addition to the aesthetic benefits of creating a homier feeling in patient rooms and in nursing stations, Carroll said, the new materials are all environmentally friendly - a part of Good Samaritan's commitment to "green building."

In this case, green means healthier and easier to maintain. The paints emit lower levels of volatile organic compounds (i.e. not as many fumes), the new flooring is made of linseed oil-based linoleum and the carpeting includes a high percentage of recycled content.

The new materials don't cost much more than the old white paint and plain tile. The few more expensive products, such as the wood-look flooring on the third floor, are more costly up front, but they'll make up the difference in long-term maintenance because they don't require wax or polish.

The color schemes will be different on each floor. The ground floor features "Blue Spruce," the second and fourth floors are "Douglas Fir," and the first and third floors are "Big Leaf Maple." Because each palette contains several accent paint colors, hospital employees get to choose which colors go on which walls in their units. In one of the third-floor nursing stations, the nurses chose a rust-colored paint for the walls, which had immediate, surprising results.

"Because of the darker tone, it's created a warmer environment, and they said they felt like the noise level went down," he said. People seem to speak more quietly and calmly now that the white walls have disappeared.