Last Friday we asked what you were ‘chasing’ or planning. Until last week, we were chasing our new house. Not that we’ve closed, we’re chasing moving into it and closing on our first house. The winner of the Chasing Alila giveaway, Wendy, is chasing after a new job and house. Good luck, Wendy!
Now, let’s talk design samples. I borrowed the sample board from the tile shop to see which colors looked best in our bathroom. Like I thought, I want Cebu Aqua on the floors with charcoal gray grout (to hide dirt from little feet) and Cebu Moka with white grout for the shower surround. While I think the Silver is pretty, it’s just too dark for dim our space.
I haven’t landed on a paint color for the bathroom yet. Maybe a pale gray? Perhaps a very light tint of the vanity color? What I do know is the color I want for the main areas. Wood Smoke by Glidden.
It was my second choice for the living room at our first house. And it looks perfect in here, on the sample.
Not terribly dark, but not pale. I grabbed a few dark gray swatches too, to see what I thought of those. Seal Gray (also Glidden) is no darker than the red accent wall, but it’s too dark to paint the entire living and dining rooms with. No accent walls either.
However, I do want a dark color for the master bedroom. The current blue is both dark and ugly, but I don’t mind the dark. The room is bright enough with sunlight streaming in through those south and east windows. Especially once we add a king bed with white bedding, pale floor to ceiling curtains (maybe white with detailing? maybe a different light color?), and white trim and doors.
Dragonfly by Ben Moore (left) is my first choice for the moody blue-green. If we’re playing it safe, I’d choose Caribbean Teal (the middle color on the right strip). Basically it’s a darker version of the color we have in the kitchen and dining rooms at our first house.
In this house, I don’t want to play it safe. I want to go with my first choice, even if it might look terrible on four walls. It’s only paint and can easily be changed, so why not take a chance, right?
And really, anything is better than the current poor coverage blue. Eek to those sconces, too.
When I ask V what color he wants his new room, half of the time he’ll say green. The other half he says yellow. Green is his favorite color, but I think he wants yellow because that’s what his other room is. I think I’ll split the difference with a yellow-green. I prefer Refined Tan, an Ace Hardware color (on the bottom left). It might be a tad bright, but I like the general color.
Perhaps I’ll get a 75% tint. Or maybe I’ll get full color and temper it with other neutrals. I already have a plan for curtains.
All I know is I like it and so does V. Ben said he doesn’t care either way. Sadly, we can’t paint either of these bedrooms right away because we (ahh hem, Ben) has popcorn ceiling to scrape off. I’m sure the walls will get dirty in that process and I’m too lazy to paint the walls twice. So not looking forward to painting those heavily textured walls in our bedroom.
What do you all think? Do you have a favorite yellow-green color? Which blue would you choose? Do you prefer light or dark colors in a bedroom?
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I love dark colours in bedrooms. We just painted ours a dark blue and I love it paired with neutral bedding and colourful shams. {http://courtneywalker.blogspot.ca/2012/02/after-narrowing-down-our-paint-choices.html} I think the Dragonfly would be stunning. And like you said, it’s only paint – if you hate it you can change it.
You’re brave to use gray. I’ve lived in two rental houses and one had such gray walls, it said “federal Pen” to me. This current house has gray walls, with a gross green tint to them. Save me from the grays!! I need exposure to pretty gray…..
Wood Smoke is almost identical to the color we painted our kitchen… which is Mega Greige by Sherwin Williams. I have the Wood Smoke swatch too b/c I loved it at the store and held it up only to find out its basically the same! It’s a gorgeous color on the walls… not too dark, not too light… and it goes with everything. We get lots of compliments on it.
GOOD LUCK painting!
This is in no intent meant to rain on your parade. Just providing my experience with paint. I painted my bedroom a dark green – I believe the color was called “Mallard” – it lost it’s appeal to me very quickly and seemed to suck all the light out of the room – even though I have(/had) a huge window. It could have been because my furniture was all darker wood.
It was a &*&^( to repaint, but the people at Lowe’s kindly pointed me to the primer that was meant to specifically transform dark walls to light colored walls. It took two gallons. I can’t remember the name of the color that I repainted – but it was a white color with a tint of blueish gray. So much more relaxing.
However, I’ve seen people online do the dark/bold colors very successfully. And I personally applaud your braveness.
I’m SO looking forward to watching you transform your new home!
I saw that green/yellow paint swatch and was drawn to the Refined Tan color; in other words, you have my vote. Looking at your home photos and all these swatches makes me realize I need to get over my color phobia. I have been toying with the idea of painting my bedroom a gray color for a while but I can’t seem to make the jump. I can’t wait to see what you choose.
We painted our master bedroom a dark turquoise color about 2 years ago and we love it. We left the ceiling white but painted the tray part of the ceiling a medium gray. Our bedding is white and gray with a black headboard and we have white Ikea curtains. I love the turquoise. It was a huge gamble to take especially since it took us 2 full days to prime and paint but it paid off. We had tan in there before and it was just so boring.
Oh please oh please oh pleaseeee…. do a post about how you get rid of your popcorn ceilings?
I agree with mama. please let us know how that popcorn removal goes. i have a ton to get rid of. thanks!
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We just painted our entire first floor wood smoke, and we love it! I think it looks like an art gallery, everything stands out, and it was a huge update from the country contemporary wallpaper the home came with!
We have Benjamin Moore Abingdon Putty (HC-99) by Benjamin Moore in our house and we love it. Sometimes it shows yellow, sometimes green, but better yet it looks neutral most of the time. I would go as far as to say that it looks like a beige/tan. It also look wonderful with stained woodwork. I would be very interested if you could make stained woodwork work in your house. I am always looking for inspiration and how to deal with this issue as my husband won’t go for white woodwork.