hoosing a paint color is something it feels like I've talked about a lot on this blog. But I've been planning on doing a blog entry on it since I'm in that process right now. But then today two people asked me questions about it (advice on choosing a color) and I'm not sure if they read the blog or if they just know I have a lot of color in my house, but either way I realized it was time to do the entry.
So -
I have two rooms in my house which are in a sort of transition. One of those rooms was painted a beigey milk chocolate, heavy on the milk, years and years ago. I quickly grew to dislike the color - in fact, I'm not sure I was ever in love with it. The room was initially an office, then a studio for my husband so he could have a space to paint, and now is sort of part of my bedroom and was slated to become a walk - in closet. But on further thought (which is how I go about most decorating/remodeling in my house...give it plenty of time to marinate and think about quite a bit before you commit - sometimes you change your mind a lot! My current kitchen is the result of well over a year of thought before final decisions were made, and I'm very happy with it) I think it doesn't make sense for me to have a closet that huge. Honestly, I don't even have enough clothes/etc. to fill up that kind of space and I started thinking of ways to re-purpose it and have it be a combo closet/other space and in the end, I realized, this is stupid. That room is further away from the noise of the family room - it has less light than my current bedroom, but in terms of privacy, it's actually the most private room in the house, least accessible from anywhere else. It's still right next to my walk in closet and right by my master bath - so I've decided to move the bedroom into that room and make my current bedroom a home office/studio. I hate where my current desk is and so this solves a lot of problems and if I move my current desk I think I have enough space for a really small kitchen table in my kitchen. But I digress....sort of...
(once you start to change one thing...there's always a domino effect)
Okay so on to paint choices. I am still in love with green. And I bought new green bedding fairly recently. I very happy with it. So I decided the new room would be green but it would tie in well with the bedding, but be a different green than anything I have in my house currently.
I went to several paint stores, pulled a whole bunch of samples and taped them to the walls. And I've been looking at them day and night, under natural light, with the sun shining on that wall, and under the low light at night. Here are the samples:
Right away when you get them on the wall some of the colors look totally wrong. But some colors take a few days to realize they aren't right. Once I am SURE a color is wrong I put a big X through it so that I am slowing narrowing down my choices. For this room, I'm finding it harder than usual to make a decision. So I'm not rushing myself. And I'm asking people who come by, what they think. And it's always interesting because everyone always have a different opinion. I just want to see what they think, but I'm not very influenced by it in the end (unless person after person really hates one of the colors...then that's probably something you should take note of):
One thing to remember is just because you like a color in someone else's house doesn't mean you're going to like it in yours. Your walls because of finish, light, both natural and directional, as well as overhead and lamps, can make a big difference and just because Razzmatazz by Frazee, looks awesome in someone else's bedroom, does not mean it will look awesome in yours.
Okay and just as a preview - I am going to do something like this -
the room has chair rail - which I am planning on keeping but I think I'm going to do this stripe effect, only on the top of the wall or on the bottom (I was thinking bottom, but a couple of people have suggested doing the stripes on the top, which I haven't decided yet)
I'll keep you apprised of my progress, I'm thinking it's going to take all summer to get this right.
I also need to get new carpet - or I just heard today you can get carpet dyed for a lot less than new carpet - but I have to look into that and see if that might be a viable option in this case.
Thoughts?
5 comments:
I LOVE that room! So, here's a question for you. Does Kirk pretty much let you do your own thing as far as design and choosing how to decorate? Or does he have an opinion on it? Because Aaron seems to have SO much opinion and we don't always agree. He was that way with our wedding too. I sometimes think for a man he was way too much opinion on these things! LOL! So, I am just curious if Kirk lets you do your own thing or if you choose together.
LOVE the stripe idea. I'd vote for the top half of the wall.
How can you tell colors from the little tiny paint samples. That's always my problem. I need a 3 foot square to decide.
I'm excited for the green BUT you are scaring me with green bedding, green walls, and now you are talking about dying carpet! Do I need to come down there and do a green intervention? Is this a result of Holden being gone and green being his favorite color? Am I going to find the Hulk (the car version) in there next time I come over? :)
Just kidding, I know you have at least a little more sanity than that ;)
P.S. Please don't start growing grass on the walls! Jordan would hate mowing that!
Julie - I think a lot of the time Kirk has let me have my way with the decor even when he wasn't too sure about it. He has cared more about architectural choices I think. But I would often show him what I was thinking or let him help pick the paint chips, but usually AFTER I already went to the store and picked up all the potential considered colors. Mostly, I think we've been able to reach an agreement, I think over time he came to trust my judgment on these types of things and left some of these decisions up to me. I would say it's been collaborative, but sort of I had the final say.
Noelle, I MAY need a green intervention. I can just never quite move on from some form of green totally. But my walls in my bedroom are green right now, but I don't know that they really go with the new bedding, so this is actually an attempt to make it more cohesive anyway.
Cynthia - sometimes it is harder to decide with the chips. I made some mistakes outside when I was looking at tiny chips and ended up having to buy like 5 small sample cans of the most strongly considered choices because I couldn't quite picture it. They have those little baby jar sized things of paint now where you can do that (at least they have them at home depot - then if you want a different paint company to actually mix the paint, you can go wherever you want once you pick the color) I know Jeff Lewis does this too - paints a square so he can get a better idea.
haha. My whole house has paint chips taped to the walls right now. I try take one off every day to narrow it down.
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