Refresher: This was our living room when we first bought the house. Nearly every wall in our new home was this yellow/green that turned neon at night.
It made my eyes hurt. I swore it was giving me a twitch & migraines. Painting the main living area walls was on top of my to-do list. Unfortunately, I went about it the wrong way by picking colors that didn’t really mesh together & hurrying the process. I found a grey that I liked for the dining room (Coventry Grey by Benjamin Moore) & then found a grey that I liked for the hall (Revere Pewter by Benjamin Moore). Except those two don’t really mesh well – Coventry Grey has blue undertones, Revere Pewter has warm undertones. Both gorgeous colors, just not right together. I wanted an olive green in the living room to go with the olive velvet I found for drapes, but after about 20 paint swatches I called it a day & randomly picked one.
That ended up being celery:
Green is a hard color, folks. I found that most greens are either too yellow or too blue, too dark or too light. It gets funky in natural light versus artificial light. When it comes to green, sometimes you have to toss all 20 swatches out, close your eyes, & gamble.
It’s not that this color is even bad, per say. It’s actually a very lovely shade of green & I enjoy this room a lot. It seems to be the room that I gravitate to for reading & at my Christmas party, it was the room where we all piled in on top of each other. Which tells me that it’s a very comfortable-feeling room & I like that.
But it ain’t flowing quite right. & these three colors together? Not so good.
In hindsight, I should have picked my hall color first, painted those walls, & then waited to see how it all felt. Add one layer at a time versus rushing to get it all done quickly. I should have found drapes & pillows first, then picked the paint for the living room. Because the result of picking all the paint at once & then scrambling to find accessories led to the Great Curtain Dramz of 2012.
The good news is that I adore the Revere Pewter in the hall the most (which is good because with 25-foot ceilings or whatnot, it’s not getting repainted as easily as the other rooms). Then two weeks ago, I had this crazy urge to add more color, so I bought an orange & white geometric pillow & yellow & white geometric pillow for the couch. Then I snagged some yellow tulips & the room seemed to feel more alive. I realized that I wanted color in a smarter way.
I stumbled across this picture on Pinterest & fell in love with the grey & yellow & mixture of brown & black accents:
It would be an easy fix to achieve this look. Revere Pewter over the green walls, add yellow curtains.
I’d even pinned this months ago from Bower Power & I guess I didn’t realize how much I liked the combo:
The long-sought Pier 1 drapes that are currently in the living room aren’t going anywhere – they’ll be moving to the family room. The folks behind us chopped down EVERYTHING in their backyard, which means they can now see us in our skivvies on Saturday morning. Doug’s been pestering me about getting blinds & we know those gorgeous windows in the family room are going to be hot! hot! HOT! when the summer sun starts pouring in, so fixing window treatments in the back has moved up on the house to-do list.
I think this might be this weekend’s project, although it feels a little crazy to be painting a room just 5 months after we had it painted. But lesson learned (which is why I won’t be repainting the dining room until I settle into the new living room scheme!).
Have you ever done this? Made a quick decorating decision to just get it done, then immediately regretted it? Talk me through this, people.
{ 21 comments… read them below or add one }
YES. and Andy doesn’t understand when I say “a wrong paint color is like a bad husband” – so I try to do things like new art or decor–because those are like a boyfriend {easier to dump ;o] }
that is SUCH a horrible analogy! But it helps me not dive in until I KNOW i love the decision!
Yes! We moved into our house and five weeks later found out we were pregnant so I was in a mad rush to make the house feel like a home. I thought I wanted warm colors for the family room because that just seemed cozy to me. In hindsight, we should have lived in the house longer to feel it out before making paint color decisions. We would have learned that the wood trim throughout the house really warms it up and that we should have gone with a brighter, cooler color on the walls… needless to say, we are in the process of going through paint samples and will most likely be repainting in the near future. So frustrating!
Exactly the reason I’m not painting my new house until we’ve lived in it awhile, started to buy furniture/curtains/rugs/etc. and I’m no longer in decision paralysis. Fortunately/unfortunately, we realized it was silly to wait to paint the bathrooms and kitchen, though. As much as I hated picking out paint colors, I realized it’s much easier to paint before the cabinets, vanities and sinks go in. The good news is that the rooms don’t ‘touch’ so I’ll be able to pick out my hallway color, living room and flex room later…with really only the need to match to the kitchen/dining area. Ugh. Paint.
I’m a multiple time offender! House #1 – painted entire living room a soft beige. When we were completely done all I could think of was baby diarrhea – way too yellow. My husband nearly divorced me that day, except that my mom was visiting… Redid with a darker tone that went from yellow to green depending on the light. Hated it, but never said a word for the 8 years we lived in the house. House #2 – (Husband wanted no part of painting and suggesting hiring someone.) I picked a beige for the partially exposed basement off the Sherwin Williams most popular color list. Painter had first coat up when I checked on the work mid-day (in the daylight) it looked good. That night when I got home I thought it was really dark. Went and checked the paint can (SW6101) and it wasn’t the color I picked (SW6106). Store had mixed the wrong one for the painter. I called the painter who was peeved, since at noon I said it looked good and now I was asking him to repaint the whole thing. He tried to talk me out of it and I told him the paint store would owe him a lot of paint to make up for the labor, but I wanted the color I originally picked. House #2 (round 2) – painting (by that I mean the painter who was previously peeved with me) daughter’s nursery with idea of Tiffany blue (SW6750). It was an empty bedroom and when I walked in after it was done, I wanted to cry (in my defense, I was pregnant). It was the color I picked, it was just really bright. Now that it is lived in and has furniture/accessories, I absolutely adore it.
P.S. Our main floor is fairly open concept and a designer picked the color for all of it. I couldn’t take the pressure.
Yes! Our living room was affectionately called “Monkey Poo” for the longest time. I wanted a brown/gray and IDFK where I came up with the color I did at first, now I’m so happy with the fix. It took a good year, taping samples to the wall, asking people what they thought when they came over.
I love the gray / yellow combo and I’m currently trying to talk Hubby into it for our master…no luck so far.
I picked a grayish purple for the whole house and I find with my dark kitchen it is too dark at night!!! Which is the only time I’m in my house during this long. Canadian. winter. Hoping i like it again when the sun comes back! In the meantime I’m pulling in bright and fun colours through etsy prints, lamps, and pillows! I also picked matching curtains for the master and the monochromatic ness is so blah. Maybe I should curtain shop this weekend….
Remember when the craze was to paint just one wall in a room? Yea, I still have a random dark red wall that I freaking hate.
I’m actually pleased with the colors in my home…DS#2 has Behr’s Asparagus Green (410D-4) with the Froggyville nursery bedding set…while DS#1 has Russian Blue (560F-4) walls. I’m dying to find something to do to the master bedroom/bath, but with DH and I separating soon, we may be moving
Good luck with the decision-making, BA. I do love the idea of gray/yellow. I’ll be interested to see what you decide on.
mine is paint disaster in reverse. we live in a place where you can only paint the walls with a flat paint and have to return it to white when we leave in 3 years. so no paint for us. and flat paint? that shiznit does NOT clean. so we have lovely marks all over the walls. i effing hate it. on the other hand i bought some amazing suzani fabric and made really pretty accents that make it less awful. and it’s just 3 years. so there are lot of gallery walls happening. and no bright lights.
Maybe this will make you feel better. We’ve been in our house almost three years & I’ve repainted every room at least twice & a few rooms three times (one being the playroom, because the green I first picked was lime-y so a week later made it more celery then a year later decided neutral everywhere & accent with colors/patterns). My husband jokes we are losing square footage thanks to my layers of paint.
I loved gray before it was in, but the yellow and gray thing is so overdone at this point. It’s your house, but be ready to redecorate in a year when you’re tired of the look. Same with chevron. It’s everywhere. No longer unique or interesting.
Never had decorating regret. But, I never decorated from scratch either. For the record, I dig the way it looks now. It looked lovely the last time I was there.
I feel ya girl! We moved into our current home & I decided to get to know the house before I chose any paint colors. After 9 color samples on the walls from 3 different stores, I finally chose Liveable Green by Sherwin Williams. It’s a neutral gray/teal/green, check it out!
Yes, but I can’t paint again.
The rushing was because we needed to paint before we moved in. My oldest DD has asthma, and it gets worse with paint.
Which was the reason to rush the painting. Her room is too dark. I wanted a light greyish blue. It’s darker & red. And won’t be painted for at least 5 or more years. I’d love to do it earlier if I could.
Hi I am a long time stalker of your blog, and have finally worked up the courage to comment.
I wish I had the courage to play with colors all the time. I am so freaked out that I will hate what we do in our house that it paralyzes me. So then I do nothing. Unfortunately now after almost 2 years in our house and 9 months pregnant I am in freak out nesting mode and want to change everything! Of course that means no enough money or time or energy to get everything done.
I love your style and your house tours have inspired me before!
Ugh. Yes. And I just screwed it all up within the past 72 hours. Baby #2 is coming in April, and I decided that I had to paint the room it will share with my son like OMG.ASAP. Greens will be the death of me. Wanted a greenish neutral. Ummm…. It’s like a mix of apple, olive and moss green. None of which say “neutral” in ANY way. I hate myself.
Downstairs.. where all the rooms flow into one another, all the colors should be chosen together. It’s as if it is one big room, after all.. so that’s why you’re having trouble. If you like gray, yellow, brown, ivory, green, then find a fabric or pillow or picture or rug, etc that already contains all those colors. Paint one room yellow from the item and accessorize with grey, brown, ivory and green. Paint one room green from that item, and accessorize with yellow gray brown from that item, paint one room grey.. and on and on. If you pick three-four main colors and use them in different combinations throughout your downstairs, your house will have a lovely cohesive look. Plus accessories can be moved from room to room to freshen things up. You can use some random color in the powder room if you wish, for a pop. Upstairs all the rooms are so separate, you don’t need to coordinate at all.
[If you're having trouble with green or yellow, you probably need one with more grey in it than you think.]
Groan…..
I’m already distracted by the thought of paint colors. We are moving back to our “city” house this summer. The whole house is a nice (?) light yellow. Totally not something I would have chosen. Mostly ok, but on some days in the right/wrong light all I can think is “wow…..this house is YELLOW”. What would be better?? Hire or DIY?? (soaring ceiling like you mentioned are also a factor) Also distracted by furniture that is fairly new (inlaw gift, yikes) but that I do NOT prefer to move back in there. Maybe I should dig into pinterest?
Yes… I was in such a hurry to cover up the sunny (faded) yellow in our kitchen that I picked a light blue that I thought I liked until we painted our living and dining room (combo room) dried grass green. It looks horrid! I’m thinking some sort of grey.. we shall see!
I am the queen of impulse decisions. I’m also a bad decorator to begin with, so yea, been there! I wanted our kitchen light green when we first moved to AK and we lived with my husbands twin brother. I was SO anxious to paint that I gave into him wanting some awful apple green (EW) couldn’t stand it and so went searching for a grayish bluish greenish. Why I wanted it, I have no idea… BAD idea in the first place, and especially because I suck and ended up getting what turned out to be almost a baby blue. Luckily it was just a rental and my brother in law was the one who ended up buying it, while we moved out
but I’ll try hard to think on these things a bit longer in our next place!
Most of our home is painted in revere pewter and I’m in love with it. Most beautiful light gray ever.