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Thursday, August 11, 2011

This is how the trouble started in the first place

We've lived in our house for 13 years. The last time we painted the kitchen and family room was 11 years ago. The last time we painted the living room, dining room and entry was about nine years ago. The last time the first floor bathroom was painted...well, that's where the trouble got started.

I wanted a yellow bathroom. Eleven coats and three shades of paint ranging from macaroni and cheese to school bus to "I wear my sunglasses to pee" later, the bathroom was painted and I was banned from ever selecting paint colors again.

Until tonight. We've decided to repaint the first floor, our bedroom (which Mike says is currently "old lady blue") and the master bath, which is still sporting the original builder's paint. I would have like to take my time selecting the colors. Go through some decorating magazines. Maybe consult a decorator or at least a few friends with a better eye for color than me. But when Mike gets it in his head he's going to do something, he wastes no time. So he scheduled the painters to be here Friday, Saturday and Sunday to paint the entire first floor (except the laundry room and the pantry), the stairwell, the master and the upstairs hallway.

Which is why we were at the paint store looking at paint chips tonight. Mike said, "I'm leaving the colors up to you." The flourescence of the first floor bathroom must have wiped the memory cells from his brain because he distinctly said previously (after the screaming yellow and the old lady blue incidents) that I was not allowed to choose paint colors anymore. His position has even been agreed with by two good friends.

I decided to take advantage of the lapse in his memory and selected a palette for the home re-do. Here is what I chose:

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Indigo Batik for the majority of the first floor walls, with the exception of a few accent walls, which will be Antique Red. The bathroom will go from "I'd rather be blind yellow" to Quiver Tan. Our kitchen cabinets and the doors and trim are white, so I thought they would stand out nicely against the blue, which will also cover the stairwell leading to the bedrooms.

The master bedroom will lose "old lady blue" in favor of Expressive Plum. The plan is to paint the master bath and the upstairs hallway Serious Gray.

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I love the colors on the color chips, but I'm beginning to wonder if all that blue and gray won't make it seem a bit cave like? Maybe the living room, dining room, entry and stairway would be better Quivering than Batiking? 

What if the painters get the paint on the walls and I hate it? I guess if nothing else, I can blog about it.

7 comments:

kimybeee said...

love it - you did a great job!!!!!

i expect before and after pics!!

Stacy said...

I'm not afraid of color (my living room is orange) but unless you have a lot of light I'd be afraid those colors will indeed make for a dark house....they are pretty, though, and I like the combinations. :)

caralyn said...

I like the the color choices! And so long as your trim is white it's really going to pop on those darker wall colors. I've been swooning over a lot of different remodels on a variety of blogs lately (in lieu of doing any of my own) so you'll have to keep us updated with how it turns out!

Rebecca said...

Love the colors, Amy!
Food for thought...remember how peachy/blue/mauve the DG formal living room was? Have you seen it since they changed the color palette to a very dark navy blue with the white trim? Your "Indigo Batik" reminds me of that color and I think it will look wonderful. Please post pics!!! :)

Shell said...

I think it will look great!

A few houses ago(we move a lot) I picked out what I thought was this really cool blue for our bedroom. It ended up being so bright that you practically needed to sleep with a pillow over your head to shut out the annoying color.

Amy said...

Just call me the wet blanket. I'm one of those who LOVES color, but is scared to death of lots of dark color. Case in point: my kitchen when we purchased our home: brick red. Do you know how many gallons of Kilz it takes to cover those kinds of colors?! That said, we have small rooms, so dark colors seem to downsize them even more. Maybe your rooms are enormous and need some downsizing. Either way, I have to applaud Mike for his "get it done now" spirit. We ain't got that here...

Can't wait to see pix of the results!
A

Chatterbox Media Relations said...

I really like the red and green and think they'll work well with your furniture. On the fence about the indigo black-ish one, but worst comes to worse, you can always buy more paint, right?!

Can't wait to see the results!