Color

When we decided to have the entirety of the house interior painted, I didn't foresee this turning into a massive spring-cleaning-in-December undertaking, but that's precisely what it has become. It started Monday afternoon when, without provocation, I decided to start cleaning the windows and blinds. From there, dusting and scrubbing the surface of frames, mementos, and books was next. Then furniture, computer equipment, and appliances. And down the rabbit hole of OCD-ination we tumbled.

The master bedroom and bath are the only rooms left to be painted -- our painters (one of whom I learned was a former professional soccer player who played for the minor league Seattle Sounders) should be here to tackle the job shortly. My office was first on the list and is completely back together and while this is going to sound odd, painting a stark white room a chocolatey brown has actually somehow made the room feel larger. We took the guest bedroom down a couple of shades from burn-your-retinas Crayola yellow and had them paint the main upstairs bath to match it. The kitchen, halls, and bonus room (unlocked via the warp-pipe on 5-3) have received a pleasant coating of a color Mr. Benny Moore calls Goldtone. The master bedroom and bath are going tanning today, while the wall behind our bed will be painted a burgundy color. I expect it to look very nice.

But as I learned yesterday, expectations are not always met.

Take the downstairs bath for instance. Some may call it a powder room. I don't, but you can if you want. Regardless what you call it, it's bright. And green. Not as bright as the white it was yesterday morning, but bright enough to bring up memories of lime-flavored LifeSavers.

I wanted something more akin to a moss green. Kristin wanted something a bit lighter. We compromised. Neither of us hate it. Neither of us love it. It just doesn't seem to match paint chip we selected, although our footy-loving painter assures us it does. I double-checked and he was right. It was the color we picked.

I also realized that a name can be pretty revealing. For example, the name of this rather startling color is "Aurora Borealis". Why we thought a color with that name would be subdued and mossy is beyond me.

It's a lot of things, but subdued is not one of them.

2 comments:

Maarten said...

Oh boy. Yeah, we learned that lesson earlier this summer: Benjamin Moore paint chips do not necessarily match the paint once it's on your wall. Gotta paint test swatches. And then back to the store to get more samples for more test swatches. Rinse roller, repeat.

Doug Walsh said...

One would have thought we learned our lesson after the guest bdrm last year, but no.

Actually, the green isn't bad. I ended up replacing all of the hardware and fixtures in the room (go from builders-grade chrome to bronze) and now it looks really good. The other colors came out great.

Thanks for writing.