Mar 29, 2013

Buying the Samples, Painting the Living Room

How long has it been that I've been talking about/ thinking about painting the living room? Other than the day we moved in? I can at least track it back to this post in October of 2012... or this one in August 2012. But I think I've been telling people about painting my living room forever. I went and picked out patch swatches last fall.

But get excited people, I took the next step... I bought paint samples. Not exactly jumping right in, but it's a start. I think I want a light blue or a gray, but I don't want to paint all the walls of the biggest room in our house and do all the detail work and look up and realize that the room looks like Andy's room or 'we're having a baby boy' blue. No offense to Toy Story, it's just that it's my living room...



I went down to Lowe's and talked to anyone who would listen about my color choices and my living room dilemma  Do I go with a safe gray or do you think this blue-green looks too much like toothpaste? After about an hour the nice lady made my three samples and I headed home.

Ended up with (from left to right) Moonshine by Benjamin Moore (matched in Valspar), Crystalline by Valspar, and River Mist by Valspar. Or as Kyle would say, "gray, blue, and blue." I was too afraid to paint the samples on the wall, and the nice lady at Lowe's said she didn't recommend putting the sample paint on the wall either. She said the samples of Valspar aren't actually the same ad the real paint. I don't know why they wouldn't use real paint, but she said the samples aren't exactly the same, but that they're 'working to make samples as close to the paint material as possible.' Still wondering why they don't just use the real paint...

Anyways, so I painted a foam board as recommended by my husband (before I realized that idea was all over the internet). Just set it up right on the living room floor with a few trash bags... it was raining outside, what's a girl to do? I did open the windows and turn on the fan though...


The samples are in the same order (from left to right) Moonshine, Crystalline, and River Mist.


And then I did what everyone recommends and I sent that foam board on the tour de la living room... (here colors bottom to top: Moonshine, Crystalline, River Mist.







I kind of love all the colors. Kind of wish the gray was a little lighter, kind of wish the blues looked less like Andy's Room. I'm a little concerned that either of the blues will be too much for such a big room and limit the color scheme down the line (it's taken me a long time to paint, so it's hard to think about re-painting the room).

For now I'm staring at the foam board all the time. Like it lives in the living room now. It could be months before I decided... but one step closer right?

Happy Friday, oh, actually Happy Good Friday. Enjoy your weekend, pray that you are truly blessed this weekend! Hope your Easter includes the best gift you could ever receive.

And if your feeling opinionated about paint, or even not... any ideas on the wall color?

1 comment:

  1. We just painted our living room gray and we love it! We have navy and teal accents so it picks up the blue but doesn't look like Andy's room. :) And, as you said, it will be more versatile in the long run.

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...