By Elisabeth Barrett
Choosing a Paint Color:
Deciding on paint colors for your home can be a nerve racking experience. There are so many colors to choose from, from enticing bolds and soothing neutrals. We are currently renovating our farmhouse and I have learned a lot about paint colors through the process. The master bedroom taught me the most, as it took me 3 times to get the color right. More on that later! Here is a guide to help you choose the best colors for you home.
Neutrals! Choose neutral calming, relaxing tones for most of the house especially the rooms you spend a lot of time in like the living room, kitchen and master bedroom. Bold or statement colors are energizing and not calming, you will get tired of bright colors in these well lived spaces. Instead have fun with colors in rooms like the nursery, (I suggest a pale pinkish purple like we used, Flagrant Flower by Valspar) kids’ rooms, and a bathroom.
Trust your instinct! Colors should be love at first sight! From when you open the paint tin to the first brush or roller strokes on the wall. If you are undecided or don’t like it at all by the time the first wall is painted, STOP! This was my experience, twice, and it would have been so bad to continue with the mistake colors. I am very happy with the final, neutral, light color I choose even if it took a journey to get there! Don’t go any further if you hate the color you brought home! I found out the Lowe’s does return premixed paints so you can go with another color! It’s better to cut your losses than settle on a color you dislike!
A note on my paint color faux paus- for a bedroom choose a color that is going to be light and refreshing but also relaxing. The mistakes I made was getting paint that was too dark and too colorful. Be aware that greys are darker once you get them on the wall so go with a grey that is almost white for the bedroom. Remember that paints will look darker once you cover the walls with it. If you find yourself wanting to paint less of that I color, i.e. an accent wall or two tone wall to change up the color then you probably don’t like the color, and you’re maybe having a hard time admitting you made a mistake. When I finally found Bermuda Sand, by Valspar the color that our master bedroom is now, I wanted to paint the entire room that color and I did! We will probably paint the hall and possibly the living this color too! We added a high gloss ultra white paint to the chair rail to add an accent, but no two tone! I was energized by the happy feelings this color gave me and nearly finished all the painting in one evening!
On that note, try not to judge your project before it’s complete! As long as you like the color! The devil is in the details! It may not look picture perfect until all the little details are complete. The walls don’t look right until you have cut in the edges and ceiling, and it will still feel rough until the trim is all painted, the base boards, windows, crown molding, and doors. The trim getting a fresh coat of paint makes a huge difference in the big picture. If you are up dating the floors too then this will also be a key feature that needs to be done before judging the end product. I’ve learned in home renovation that patience is key! Rome wasn’t built in a day!
Egg shell finish paint versus Satin? Personally I prefer egg shell for most rooms, especially the bedrooms and satin for the bathroom. Satin can get wet and is easily wiped down, but it does tends to highlight imperfections in your wall. For that reason, I like egg shell best! Egg shell is less shiny. Satin has a shin to it that works nice in small spaces like the bathroom but doesn’t feel right to me in the bedroom. It’s a personal preference but these are the tips I have learned and found I like best for my house!
Paint Tools- An artist is only as good as her tools! Invest in good paint brushes, rollers, pans, screws drivers etc. Try to have all your supplies ready when you start your project. Be sure to prep your space and surfaces to avoid frustrations later.
Which brand paint to buy? Like most things in life when it comes to paint you get what you pay for! I say opt for the best! If you’re buying your paint at Lowe’s the best paint they carry is Sherwin Williams. Valspar is good paint too. I have used it with no complaints! If we are talking about a $10-$15 dollar difference from the starter paint to the best quality paint they have, I’d say it’s worth the extra money to go for the better quality for something you will have on your walls from the next 10+/- years.
A few notes on WALLPAPER! We used wallpaper on the bottom half of the walls in our nursery and ABSOLUTELY love it!! It brings the space and the walls to live! It is so fun and adds so much more to the room than just a plane coat of paint ever could! However, a few things to know before you decide to install wallpaper. It is most surely a two person job! It is not easy to line up the paper, that will likely take 4 hands! You will also end up wasting paper in order to line of the patterns so account for that when ordering your quantity of paper. It takes time! Much more time than painting but, in the end it is worth it! It is more of a project that paint so prepare yourself to have the needed patience it takes to complete this job!
Our renovation paint colors so far: the nursery is Flagrant Flower by Valspar with beautiful floral wall paper we ordered from Lowe’s. We LOVE the paint color and wallpaper! This is by far our favorite room in the house! The color is so fresh, relaxing and bright. It’s a perfect color for the nursery. It’s fun and I designed this room to be my ideal princess room and it turned out great!
Bathroom- we choose the color Bombay Pink by Valspar aka Mediterranean Sunset. It complements the flowers in the wallpaper of the adjoining nursery. We added a nice shower curtain to match and it all came together nicely. I didn’t love this pink at first, but didn’t hate it either and once the project was complete, I like how it turned out! It works for a bathroom and in satin finish, but I wouldn’t recommend it for a larger room. I’d prefer a lighter pink for larger rooms. This turned out darker than expected.
The master bedroom taught me the most on my color journey during this reno. At first I thought I’d use two of my favorite colors, green and blue. The room has a chair rail so this made me think about a two tone room. The green and blue was a terrible idea! It wasn’t even in a light tones . It turned out so dark and looked like a boys room! I stopped while I was not ahead, after a wall and most all of the lower half of the room. So I primed over what we had painted and took the paint back. Then the second mistake was taking too much advice from the Lowe’s worker on color and not my own intuition. I have never been a grey paint person, but somehow ended up leaving Lowe’s that evening with a grey (Bay Waves by Valspar) which once on the wall turned out dark and what looked like copy machine grey! I was open to a very pale, nearly white grey, that is bright and fresh, but she talked me out of that into a much more distinct and in my opinion ugly grey. Much to dark of the bedroom! And in an effort to try to duplicate the beauty of nursery I thought we’ve have a lavender accent wall! Oh no! This is when I learned to keep it simple! Less is more! Stay neutral! Too much of a good thing is not a good thing. Have fun with colors in wardrobe not your walls! After this I knew 3rd time was charm and I had to get it right. I study the neutral color pamphlet for hours on morning and finally went with the color that my gut was drawing me to every time. I couldn’t be happier with how it turned out. I choose Bermuda Sand by Valspar color and used the egg shell finish with a Sherwin Williams paint. I like this creamy neutral so much we painted the whole wall and all the walls this color in our bedroom. We painted the chair rail high gloss ultra white for a pop of fresh, crisp white and it looks so classy, refreshing, inviting and relaxing!
If you’re looking for a grey I recommend Cool Grey on this Valspar neutral palette. For blue, try Sweet Slumber is the left corner. Both are pale neutrals with a nice hint of the color. Just enough to spruce up your room without overpowering it.
