What a Behr!

One good thing that came of our almost-meeting with the contractor this morning was that I had to settle on paint colors. We have probably been to Home Depot and Lowes about 10 times in the past two weeks. On Saturday we literally went to Home Depot three times and Lowes once. We finally decided that we could get everything we needed or liked at Home Depot, so we don't need to go back to Lowes anymore. This is a good thing for me, because the less options the better. When given too many choices I get frustrated and overwhelmed so I prefer to narrow my options. Narrowing options also meant settling on Behr Paint from Home Depot. This was helpful because I only had one section of paint samples to scour instead of five. I have collected stacks of samples over the last week and agonized over every different shade. I've asked for several different people's opinions and asked Andrew about a hundred times, "Do you think this looks ok?" He always answers, "Yes." Last night with this morning's meeting looming, I finally made some decisions.

I scanned in the swatches I brought home, but the scans are not really true to color. At least you can get an idea of what they look like. And if you're ever in Home Depot and find yourself without something to do (yeah right, like that will ever happen) you can wander on over to the Paint section and check them out for yourself.

Castle Stone is the neutral color that will kind of ground everything in the house. We are using it in the formal dining/ living area, up the stairs, and in the hallway on the second level. In real life it looks more like a beige/ khaki kind of color than how it shows up here. I like it because it's very neutral but still gives off a warm tone.

The next color, Grass Cloth, will be in the family room and kitchen. Picking this color was probably the most nerve racking for me because it's green, and perhaps a little outside of my comfort zone. I think it's going to look awesome but its a little bolder of a choice than I would normally make. Again, it doesn't show up too well on here. Actually, in real life it looks like something in the middle of how Grass Cloth and Grape leaves looks on here. Again, it is a warm color and I think it will look fabulous with everything we are going to do in the family room (more to come in a later post). I think the family room might end up being my favorite room in the house. This green was hard to pick out because the family room isn't a huge room and doesn't get a ton of light. Although a little nervous, I knew I wanted to do a green but it couldn't be a dark shade because it would really close the room in. I think I looked at every green shade Behr makes before I settled on this one. This color will also be in the kitchen, but won't cover much area since we have a tile backsplash. It will only be around the boarder above the cabinets.

The last color is Honey Bear for the master bedroom. We will actually only be doing it on three of the walls and will be painting one wall white as an accent wall. The master bedroom is way bigger than I ever thought I would have, so we are going to do a sitting area at one end of the room, in front of the white wall. I originally thought I would do more of a yellow color but was a little nervous about making it too bright. I wanted to stick with the warm color pallet and also wanted to avoid having "highlighter yellow" walls. I have some fabric and furniture pieces that I needed to make sure the color would work with, so instead of yellow it became more of a gold color (and of course again, not shown very well here). Before I settled on this one I taped several of the swatches to our bedroom wall next to the fabrics that will be in the master bedroom at the new house. I left them up for three days and of course changed my mind about ten times before choosing. I would look at them in different lighting and try to figure out which one looked the best under all lights. One morning at 7:30 when Andrew was still in bed I opened up the curtains and all the blinds in the bedroom and turned on every light so I could view them in the most light possible. I think he thought I was crazy but if I have to live with this choice, I want to make the right one. And of course, he was no help at all with his "Yeah that looks good" lines. Anyway, I think the white and blue toile is really going to pop against this warm gold color and should look awesome! The gold fabric you see in the picture is a slipcover for a loveseat that will go in front of the white wall. I'm excited to see this all put together! I think I'm going to pick a slightly softer tone in the same color family to paint in the master bath, but I'm not as concerned about picking that right now. We have a matching shower curtain in the blue toile and white towels, so I think that will look good but not too overwhelming for a smaller room.

Alright, enough about paint for tonight. I'm mostly glad to have made some decisions and not have to agonize over them anymore. I really can't wait to see it all finished and enjoy being in the house!