The Painting Predicament

One of the first decisions that needed to be made for the new house was picking a paint color. Sounds simple right? NO! I had no idea how hard picking a paint color would be. 

Our contractor uses Behr paint, and I am NOT a fan of Home Depot. But since that is who carries Behr we made the trip one evening to get a swatch. I am going for a farmhouse style and I love light earth tones. 

So I found the above swatch and thought the middle color was perfect. We got the paint sample, along with one very similar I thought would also go nicely. 

We go to the house, and when it gets painted on, IT LOOKS 100% WHITE! Both of them. WHITE! So back to Home Depot we went. We got more samples and I frankly just wasn't happy with any of them. One of my best friends had some leftover samples from a project she did so we tried those on the walls. One of the two I actually really liked. I was still hung up that it was too dark for the home though. The house doesn't get a ton of natural light so it's fairly "dark" and I didn't want a paint color to make it darker. But after what ended up being FOUR stops to Home Depot I just caved and decided on one of my friends colors. 

(Color we chose was second in from the right)

My dad noticed though that her sample was enamel and we wanted a flat paint. It was also a Valspar paint so we had to go get it color matched with Behr along with getting it in flat. We had painted the enamel sample over a board so we could take it to different spots around the house and so when we finally got the flat version my dad painted HALF the board with the flat over the enamel. 

The next day we went back to the house to show my sister and brother in law the house for the first time. I see the board and am shocked. It's DARKER, I didn't realize flat is darker than enamel. I knew instantly I didn't like it. So it was BACK to Home Depot we went. 

(Flat on the left, enamel on the right) 

So we picked out THREE more samples (I think we are up to 11 colors now) and I say a prayer to the paint gods to PLEASE let one of these work. It was about 2pm at this point and we needed an answer by 7pm to tell our contractor. I ended up getting two light greys, one with a tinge more beige and one general beige, just in case the greys turned out white like my first samples.

(Top 3 were the new samples)

Unfortunately I took the above photo when the paint was still semi-wet so it's hard to get an idea of the actual color. 

On the across wall by the window we painted the two greys. My husband and sister loved the grey close to the window. I liked it as well. But I kept thinking if it was going to go well with my antiqued furniture. I knew however it would go great for our master bedroom because our bedding has grey. 

This was the beige that I picked. As it dried (to me) I definitely felt that I could see a grey undertone to it. But all these colors were so hard to tell what they would really look like with such small squares on the wall and in every room it looked different because of the lighting. 

That morning Lincoln refused his first nap and was in such a grumpy mood. It has rained the night before so while we were painting the samples we let Lincoln play in the puddles outside. 

He ended up slipping in the mud and getting SOAKED so we had to strip him down. Eventually it came time to say goodbye to Auntie Kelly and Uncle Josh. 

The next couple hours Louie and I agreed that even though we both loved the grey we thought the beige would go better with our antiqued furniture and our decor. The decision had been made. FINALLY! After 11 colors! 

Overall even though it wasn't the color I was necessarily picturing in my head, I think the two colors will go perfectly in the house. The baseboards and trim around the house will all be painted a fresh bright white as well so I think once it's all said and done it will look so crisp and clean. 

I have to end this post with two photos. The first was the sweetest little note that we discovered in front of our driveway today welcoming us to the neighborhood from one of the kids. 

They left the chalk so I couldn't resist and had to write "Thank you!" It warmed my heart. 

The second is a picture of lincoln dressed  up as Peter Pan for halloween. It's just too adorable not to share :)