In writing this post, it occurred to me that, over the years, I have spent a lot of time painting rooms. To be precise; 35 rooms in 12 years. Four of them in the last three months. I’m planning on painting another six rooms in the next four months.
Whoa. That is a lot of paint!
I spent FOREVER choosing a color for one accent wall in my kitchen. I eventually found EXACTLY the shade I wanted — a blue-green (green-blue?) that was a combination of Lake Michigan on a particular early morning walk and the leaves on a vintage tablecloth. No, my contractor didn’t strangle me, and the wall makes me smile every time I walk into the kitchen. Every other wall in my home is a different variation of white that only I can see. For example, my studio is “Chantilly Lace” by Benjamin Moore, but I’m sure nobody realizes that it is a different white from those in other rooms.
My husband and I just had 3 rooms painted in our house too! but we had it professionally done – this being our first home purchase together, we wanted it avoid all the inevitable mistakes we would have made! I am happy to say my color choices came out great too! A gorgeous soft golden Bee’s Wax yellow for the kitchen (to cover the awful Hospital Scrub Green that was there before!), a medium olive-grey for the hallway and a darker shade of the same olive-grey for the great room, which extends clear up into the loft. I was worried the yellow might end up too bright, or the dark grey would be too dark, but they look awesome! I kept telling myself DON’T BE AFRAID OF COLOR lol.
Well, you have nine rooms or halls or closets? Now that you are on your own I would bust out and take some chances. I have had rooms almost every color but black and purple. My laundry room is a pale lavender. I picked it because it was different and it matches a lot of my western desert eBay paintings. It used to have wallpaper that was a border of Cowgirl cats with buttons for the main part. Strange.
It seems that there is a dichotomy between your festive approach to everything and your desire to have a neutral background. My favorite color is a Martha Stewart Beach glass. My living room is called lamb’s ear, the plant, not the animal. I think the best article about color is the one in House Beautiful every month. I used to save them, but they are in a book now. My guest room is a medium apple green. It is a nice strong color. Dark furniture looks good with it. Have a painting party and invite people over to help. Or, I guess you’ll have to have several.
On the bright side of it, you’ve created a lot of room art in the past 12 years. If only you reside near our Manila real estate property, I’ll invite you over to help me with the renovation.
This is really cool. Whatever happened to Christopher Lowell anyway?
Hi, I am a very late-to-the-party fan, and discovered you only about a week ago. I have been going through your earlier posts, ran into one called “hello Housepaint”, and when I clicked to read more, I was curtly told by the next screen that “I wasn’t invited to read that page”. Well, it is something I said? Shall I apologize? May I pretty please with glitter on it read this page, or is it locked away forever?
Sorry, this sucks. You are the third person to bring one of these posts to my attention. Blogger, the platform I use, does this sometimes to consolidate space or something. It has also eaten a few old posts that I know about. VERY annoying. One of the many reasons I’m moving to WordPress soon. Sorry about that!
Bummer that this is restricted…