It’s been 20 days since my last posting. The last 20 days has been filled with trim, trim and more trim. There’s so much more trim than we imagined and, since the first floor is “old construction,” we had to add a piece of quarter-round “shoe molding” to hide gaps between the wood floor and the kick molding caused by uneven floors. I actually like the way it looks – dresses things up a bit.
While Kel has been working on trim, Chris and I have had paint on the mind. I’ve avoided writing about the paint colors because I was too indecisive to blog about it…and too busy reading other posts about colors and flow and undertones. The paint choices themselves were difficult but when you throw carpet into the mix (which we’re doing in our bedroom) and the fact that we have no idea what we’ll have for furniture, bedding, etc., it really complicates things.
Top ten things I kept in mind when choosing paint colors:
- Don’t go too dark. And if you choose a dark color, make sure it is in a room that has a lot of trim to break up the darkness (we went this route in the office).
- Neutral is always best, but there are lots of neutrals so give some thought to undertones. And, if you’re like us, avoid red undertones – everything just looks pink. Go with greys the have more of a green undertone and beiges that have more of a yellow undertone. (Our carpet has a green undertone because I read if you go with a red undertone carpet it makes the walls look pink, too.)
- Go with all “clean” or all “dirty” colors: You can’t have a bright, happy yellow bedroom if all the other rooms and hallway are muted tones. (We went all dirty, muddy neutrals. Yum!)
- Think of all of the house colors as a palette – put the paint chips all together and see if any stick out as “off.” Choose the trim color first and always look at paint chips next to the trim you plan to use. Not sure whether there is a good flow from room to room, ask yourself this question: Could a throw pillow that was the color of Room A look okay on a couch in Room B and vice versa.
- Get input from professionals. Bring tiles, photos, etc. into the paint store so they can provide the most educated counsel possible. Under no circumstances should you look at paint colors online.
- Break up monochromatic color schemes by changing the value of the color. For our open floor plan, we went with Benjamin Moore Revere Pewter for the whole downstairs but, going up the stairs and in the hallway, we did the same color at 45% (we actually started at 25% Revere Pewter, had the paint store brush it out and kept having them add 10% more pigment until we were happy with the color. We wanted a contrast between the 100% Revere Pewter but also a contrast between the trim and the wall color upstairs).
- Chris hates red rooms. Which is fine – some parameters are good!
- “You can always paint it another color” is something I heard again and again but let’s be honest – we never will. Paint samples are your friend. Brush color samples on in multiple spots – areas with more and less light and make sure you really are happy with the color. Don’t settle.
- You can’t go wrong with Benjamin Moore Historic Collection.
- Greens are like white wine. Good when they’re good but the wrong one and it’s terrible.
One thing we are so happy about is that we hired a professional painter. Painting is just not fun and, after all this money and hard work, we want it to be perfect. I wish neither Chris nor I were insanely detail oriented but that is just not the case.
Okay so what did we choose? Drum roll please…Trim: White Dove – OC-17
Downstairs (Living room, dining room, hallway): Revere Pewter HC 172
Office: Van Courtland Blue HC-145 (It was a Pottery Barn color for the fall, and I just loved it. Has a little green in it and there is enough white trim to break up the darkness. Any lighter, it I was afraid it would look like a little boy’s bedroom. It is serious but not stuffy and will look great through the barn doors from the living room. Gorgeous next to Revere Pewter and with the White Dove trim.)
Stairway and upstairs hallway: Revere Pewter at 45%
Mudroom/breezeway/DEN!: C2 Saltwater (the ONLY non Ben Moore color – just love how it sometimes looks green, sometimes blue, sometimes grey. Grammy kept saying “Bring the outdoors indoors for this room” so I kept that in mind. Plus it is called SALTWATER. It’s only right.)
Downstairs bathroom: BM China White 74 (we plan to do 8 inch stripes of C2 Buttercream down the road – both were the only two colors that looked okay with both our Carrera marble vanity top AND our beigey/yellowy/peachy travertine-stone type tiles)
Upstairs bathroom will also be China White
Guest bedroom (front): BM Windham Cream HC-6 (I really want a yellow guest room…with grey and white bedding)
Guest bedroom (back): BM Silver Sage (Megan Fass recommended I paint my bedroom in DC this color before I sold it and I’ve loved it ever since and swore every house I ever owned with have a Silver Sage room in it)
Master bedroom: BM Manchester Tan HC-81 (soothing, quiet but not drab)
Master bathroom: BM Solitude AF-545 (One day when we first moved, I dragged Chris to Barns and Noble to look at home magazines. I thought it would be helpful for us to decide together we liked and didn’t like. He was only amenable to it because it was 100 degrees out and air conditioned inside. He found a photo of a bathroom and said “THIS is what I want our master bathroom to look like.” We have matched it to a T. Hence, this color choice.)
And there you have it. So far, the master bedroom is painted and we’re so happy with how it looks. Our painter is super. I really do feel very confident in the color choices and can’t wait to show photos of the finished product!
