Picking Paint the Right Way!

If you don't know me, I am what my friends would call a "get it done now" kind of girl. I don't waste time, I don't ponder things for years on end, I get an idea, research it and do it. As for paint, I have been painting for years. I painted every single room in our old house, actually numerous times and I even wall papered. I am very familiar with paint, paint shades, what paints will work together, etc. So when we bought this house I knew the paint had to go right away. Who could live with terracotta and peach on their walls??? I couldn't! My old house was beige but with hues of pink in it. With this house I wanted more gray on the walls. So I went to the paint store and got swatches. I took all the swatches home, put them up on the wall and found my paint color. Now in the past, this has always worked for me but this time it didn't:( I got a light gray for my downstairs. I bought a 5 gallon bucket for $115. Once I got home, I got to painting! About 4 rolls onto the wall with the paint roller, I knew this was the wrong color! The gray looked awful with my flooring and the walls looked cold and blah! I had just made a huge purchase and it wasn't right! My husband was going to kill me!!! So, in order to not completely waste my paint, we did use it up in the office (which only took up maybe a gallon) and I just passed it off to my cousin to paint his room. Now, there is a fix to paint you don't like. If it is light paint, you can take it back to the paint store and they can add color to it so you don't waste it. For me, I have literally painted every room in the house so I don't have any use for it anymore.

After my wrong paint debacle, I started again, looking for beige paint but with heavy grey hues in it. I found the perfect fit along with another color one shade lighter for my hallways and living room (Hallways tend to be darker than other places in your house so lighter shades are best in those areas). Since I didn't have much furniture at the time of painting, I was afraid to go with bold colors on the walls. When picking paint colors, you should have a staple piece in the room that you can build from. Painting the walls blue first and then shopping for bedding, accessories, couches, etc. to match your blue wall is a nightmare!! You will never find just the right color you want to tie everything in! So with knowing this, I went safe on my walls. Everything matches beige right!! But on that same note, beige can be boring;)

As for the upstairs, we have low, curved ceilings (only 6 feet tall on the curves). This makes painting tricky! If you trim out the top of the wall, showing off the curved ceilings, your wall will look even shorted then it is. I wanted the ceilings to look as tall as possible so I went with a very light beige on the walls and ceilings. Unfortunately this is boring again. I went from a navy blue bedroom wall in my old house to the inside of an almond color. The only exciting color was my daughters room which is covered from floor to ceiling in pink and of course our grey office;). Looking back, I could have gone slightly darker with the beige and still gotten the open feeling I wanted. I will say, beige has been easy to decorate but I find I have to add lots of color in the room to make it pop.

Tips for painting shopping:
1. Look at a color wheel and read up about color matching. It will help you in the long run.
2. Find a starting point. Get the bedding, couch, drapes, or furniture you want for the room FIRST. Don't do that after you paint the walls!
3. Think about lighting in that area. I mentioned earlier that I chose a beige one shade lighter in my hallways and living room. This is because they tend to be darker than other places of my house. If you put a dark color in a dark room, it will be dark. I know on home shows they are saying you can do it, but it will be dark. (Remember, rooms look brighter on TV because they have a million lights on in the room along with the camera light.)
4. Get lots of swatches! Match the swatches up to your furniture. Look for the hues in the swatch- grey, pink, yellow, orange. You can play off those hues in your design.
5. GET A SAMPLE JAR! - Don't make my mistake! Buy a $2.75 sample jar. If you hate the color, you won't be crying like I was about it.
6. Make sure this color will compliment the next room. If you have adjoining rooms, make sure the rooms flow together. Don't paint red walls in one room and green in the next, unless you want your house to look like Christmas all year long;)
7. Follow your gut! I was 4 paint rolls in with my grey paint and I knew it wasn't right. I could have kept going and tried to live with the color but I didn't. Painting is a lot of work! I knew I didn't want to do it again so I chalked up the loss, and went with my gut! And boy am I so glad I did that! I love the color I have up now.

Good Luck and Happy Painting:)

 Pink room! Ceiling and all.

 Using a sprayer was easiest upstairs. This is my husband and dad on the job:)

 This is the master. You can see the coved ceilings. If we trimmed in that line for the ceiling, the room would have looked even shorter!

 

Today the master. I tried to all in color to the room. Still a work in progress but comfortable for now. Painting the furniture is on my to do list:)

Entry way. It is dark so I wanted a lighter color.

Living room and dining room. One shade off from each other. They look very similar in person due to lighting. I rolled the downstairs with a power roller. So much faster!

Living room now. I painted out the book shelves a darker color so they would pop. I will blog about that crazy project later!

Another view of living room color.

Kitchen , dining, family and playrooms are actually the same color. Lighting changes the look of things.