My Home- Paint Choices

When Gary and I moved into our home in 2006, it was a completely blank canvas. White walls!!! Whoo Hoo!!!! I was in decorating heaven!! This was our first home and I wanted it to be great and I wanted it to showcase my talents as a "wanna be designer." Even though I was still teaching, I still had the strong desire to be a designer full time (that dream is now becoming a reality, but more on that later).

Anyway, this was a new build and we purposely wanted nothing done to the inside of the home except the basics. We wanted to choose our own paint colors, tile for the backsplash in the kitchen, etc. on our own as we had the money.

The first thing we did tackle was the painting of each room. Before we even had our move in date, I was choosing paint colors. The DIYers we are, we decided to paint everything on our own. It saved money, but painting is a chore. Phew!! Lucky for us, the move in to the house was earlier than the lease was up on our apartment. So, we actually painted our Master Bedroom and Master Bath before we moved any furniture into the house. Our dining room was painted soon after. Since then, we have painted the downstairs Guest Bath, the Office, the Living Room and Kitchen and the Entryway (the only space we had someone else paint due the the two story walls). We recently painted the Guest Room and we are now working on the Nursery (YAY!!!) and we will tackle the Guest Bath at a later time. I am trying to decide if I want it to look like a Guest Bath or a Kids' Bath. Can't decide just yet.

Well, enough of that before I am off on a tangent. Here is a list of all of the paint colors we chose with a picture of the rooms. DISCLAIMER: Some pictures may be scary and are not a true reflection of my plans for the spaces shown. My home is a complete work in progress and some spaces have been changed several times. Ask my husband how he feels about that?? I had the Living Room furniture laid out in a nice way where the TV was not the center of attention and he complained he could not sit on the couch and play his video games without getting a crick in his neck. So....the couch is now moved for the millionth time to accommodate the ever present black hole we call a TV that can only rest on the one wonderful uninterrupted wall we have in our living room. Sigh!!

Okay-- so here are our paint colors for our home. I waver between back to nature, vintage and modern somewhat. I am rather eclectic in my tastes, but I think our home is moving more toward the vintage at this point.

How I choose a paint color: When I decide to paint a wall in our home, I go to the paint store and I pull every single paint chip that I have even the slightest positive reaction to that is in the right color family. I then take those paint chips home and tape them to the wall where I will be painting. I make sure to cut any white from the edges and separate the paint colors into individual pieces. This helps to ensure that I am looking at the color in its purest form. I then leave those paint chips up for a while, looking at them each in every light from morning to night. Every once in a while I will pull one down. In the end, there are a few left and I make my final decision. Then I am happy!!

When choosing paint colors for your home, you also need to somewhat coordinate between rooms that flow into each other openly. This doesn't mean the SAME color, but you do need to watch TINT (adding white to a color) and SHADE (adding black to a color). Paint choices should coordinate in color and tint or shade just so they flow together from room to room.

• Entryway: Out entryway is two stories and leads into our dining room with an opening in the wall- no doors. The lower half of the wall is WHITE WAINSCOTING and the Upper portion of the wall is painted with BEHR S-G-790 BEAR RUG. This dark brown color took me a very long time to choose. I knew I was taking a chance doing something so dark, but with the light from the upper window and all of the white from the dining room, I went for it. To choose this color took a while because I did not want any brown that was reddish in tone. 

Entrway Paint Color 

• Guest bath downstairs: Valdspar 3004-10A Cliveden Leather I really like this color, but want to do something more in this space with the walls. Perhaps some stenciling. This color is on the National Trust for Historic Preservation List. I love colors on this list. There is just something about them. 

• Dining Room: BEHR 500F-6 Hallowed Hush 

Dining Room with our first DIY piece- the table and chairs

• Kitchen: This color took a while to choose. This space runs into our living room so I wanted colors that coordinated. I decided to paint both spaces the same color. SW6373 Harvester. This was the one time I spent money on Sherwin Williams paint. Typically, I go with Behr. But, I loved this muted yellow color. 

This is the same yellow as in the Living Room, but looks lighter in the daylight. This also shows the tile we chose from Lowes -- it was on sale and came with discounted labor costs!!

• Living Room: SW6373 Harvester; After a while, this color actually became overwhelming so I added HORIZONTAL STRIPES to the Harvester. Thanks to my husband's beautiful and very OCD lines, these turned out PERFECT. For the STRIPES, I used VALDSPAR CRAFTED WHITE 3007-6C. The fireplace was painted later with BLANCHED THYME 6001-4A

Fireplace Appears as a Black Hole	New Fireplace

• Master Bedroom: I don't really care for our Master Bedroom color, but we haven't had time to redo it yet. I do love the accent color, but... three walls are BEHR BELVEDERE CREAM 770C-2 and the wall behind our bed is BEHR 480F-4 MERMAID NET 

This was soon after Move In Day- It looks much different now, but you can see the colors.  The walls are going to be repainted one day because I don't like the cream color -- too light for a bedroom.

MASTER BEDROOM UPGRADE COMING SOON 2014

• Master Bath: BEHR 480F-4 MERMAID NET

SEE THE ALL NEW UPGRADED MASTER BATH {Master Bath Update}

• Office: The space I gave up control. This was Gary's space and it actually turned out great! Colors used: MISTY SURF 740E-2; HERBAL MIST 440E-2, OCEAN VIEW 560D-5, AND SEVEN SEAS 560D-6 

The Master's Taping Skills (Gary) 

Office Finished Wall (Ignore the mess)

  

• Guest Room (BEFORE): BEHR COLORSMART GREEN ENERGY UL210-17

Guest Room Before the Change (this room is now the nursery) See Below. 

• Nursery: See the nursery {Nursery} Paint colors used- My mom suggested using this room as a nursery since I already had the green wall. It made a perfect background for the mural. Thanks, MOM!!! Background Colors: BEHR COLORSMART GREEN ENERGY UL210-17; Stripes BEHR EMINENCE 550E-2 (blue color). The Mural colors included various paint samples and colors I already had from other projects. This room used to be the guest room with the green wall.

•  Guest Bedroom: I am sorry to say I do not know the name of the color we used in the Guest Room. I will post the name of one that is most likely it. We bought this in the Oops Bin at Home Depot and I love the color. It didn't have a name and when we went to buy more, they had to color match it : ( It is very similar if not the same color as BEHR LION 760D-4

PICTURE TO COME SOON 

• Declan's Bathroom:  {Bathroom}