Choosing Paint (AKA How a Decorator Saved My Sanity)

It's done!  ALL the paint colors are picked out!  (Oh wait. I haven't figured out the master bath.  But I'm leaning towards white. That room's got a lot going on in there already.)  But anyway, I'm rejoicing because after months of stressing out to the point of hives over what colors to paint all the rooms in the house, it's finally all decided.  I did end up having to hire a designer to figure it out.  This was due to a little incident where, after weeks of planning colors for the basement to go with our milk chocolate brown sectional, making 3 trips to the paint store to get more samples and more paint rollers, painting 7 different swatches on several walls to observe the effects of light on each color, and eventually mixing 2 colors to get the exact perfect shade of pistachio green, Big Daddy came to look at the color I'd picked and announced that not only did he hate the pistachio green, he also hated that milk chocolate brown couch.

Commence tearing out of hair.

Followed by some heated discussions about color, furniture, who's watched more hours of HGTV, and whether the couch might seem a fun place to sleep for the next 2 months.  But then we realized this might all be solved if a professional became involved.

Enter the decorator.  She was referred to us by friends.  I had seen her work, scouted her pinterest page, and felt fairly sure there was a chance she could find just the right colors to save our marriage.  But still...picking paint colors is HARD.  And it took a lot of faith to put these choices in her hands.  But I think we have it done.  The winners are:

Kitchen/mud room .  A lovely shade of subtle blue-ish aqua -  Copen Blue (Sherwin-Williams)

Pantry and Main Floor Mini-Laundry.  A pale creamy yellow - Open Window (Kwal)

The rest of the main floor (living, dining, powder room, office, master, master closet).  A warm beigy grey - Siberia. (Kwal)   (I know, "Siberia" just sounds warm and inviting, right?)


Then there's the basement.  This is where my previous favorites "Refreshing Tea" (Behr) and "Soothing Lime"  (Olympus?) got mixed to make the perfect pistachio.  Which got nixed.  So our designer came up with her own idea:

Willow Herb. (Behr)  It's hard to explain, but it's a sort of pale golden green.  Very neutral, but fun.


Upstairs things get more colorful.  Pippa's room will be pink.  "Canuck" to be exact. (Kwal)  It's a soft ballet pink.

Daphne's room, which is getting a vinyl raindrop treatment of coral, grey, aqua, and turquoise will get white walls underneath.  "Mistaya" is it's name.  (Kwal)

Beck's room, which will be nautical themed, will get a pale grey-ish blue called "Sea Fog"  (Kwal)

The hallways and laundry room will be "Siberia" grey.  For now.  I want to put an accent color in the reading nook and eventually some kind of fun wall treatment (maybe a stencil, or some stripes) in the laundry room. But that's enough for now.  Six colors, plus white.  Not too much, right??

The new/replacement baseboards, crown molding, and door frames are already going up and have received their first coat of paint in some of the rooms.  We decided to replace the existing rosettes and plinths, which had a Victorian bullseye design, with perfectly plain ones to modernize the trim a little bit.  I bet you don't know what a rosette or a plinth is.  Well neither did I.   But now I do so, here you go!

So those are the little changes in the house this week.  And although they may seem small, once the paint starts going up, this house is going to begin a LOT different.  I'm so excited!


Next stop....tile!

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