Many many months ago (in fact, like a year and a half ago) I picked out the paint color for the front room
The middle, left with the “C” next to it. I’d wanted a richer, deeper color for this room because I felt like the grand-ness really deserved it. But the more I sat on that color, the more I wasn’t sure about it. Was it too deep? Was it too purple? Did it really go with the rest of the house?
So I decided a revise was necessary.
I got 4 colors and tested them out on another wall. But pretty much as soon as I painted them on the wall, I really didn’t like them
I was really going for a gray shade, but I wanted it to have hints of blue and purple in it. But these screamed too much blue and purple.
Not wanting to waste more money on samples, I grabbed a handful of paint chips in about 25 seconds when we were at HD one day waiting to rent the plate compactor
One evening while watching some TV I started to go through them and immediately threw out about 1/2 of them – too green, too brown, devoid of any real color at all…and was left with 6 colors I was pretty sure about. So I put them on the mantle to see how they’d work with the white detail in the room and the wood tones of the mantle (and baseboard and beams)
In the evening light I was pretty sure about the Martha Stewart Cement Gray on the left for the darker detail walls (the relief and fireplace), and the lighter Glidden Wood Smoke on the right for the rest of the walls in the room
But once daylight came around I didn’t like Wood Smoke as much and two other shades migrated over
The paint chips sat on the mantle for a few days and my opinion went back and forth. Chris asked which ones I liked. He agreed that the darker shade was the winner, but held up the other paint chips against it to see which one he liked best with it. And thankfully, the one he liked best was what I liked best too
The other two were just a tad off, too blue or too similar in color to the darker shade
I’m super happy with the colors we chose, now I’ve just got to repair those canvas walls, repair some plaster, sand the floors, stain the floors, and clean all the walls…damn that to do list.
Sara @ Russet Street Reno says
Picking paint is so hard. I love it when people just willy-nilly go pick out a color ("um, it's gray!") and then put it on their walls and think it looks great – when it doesn't. It's hard work picking just the right shade!
meryl rose says
I know what you mean! Of the 6 rooms we've painted in the house, 2 had to be immediately repainted, 1 went through 13 paint samples, 1 I don't really like too much (but it's the laundry room, so who cares?) and only 1 I liked on the first try after (just) 4 samples. Not a great record, heheehehe 🙂