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In Which Plans and Burgers Are Made, and My Super Scientific Method for Selecting Paint Colors

March 3, 2013 by Brynne 2 Comments

Subtitle: It’s my house and I’ll peel wallpaper if I want to.

On Saturday, we hung out at our new house for the first time. That is to say, we’d been there once since the closing to get the keys and make sure no lights were on and the washer and fridge water hookups were tightly turned off, etc, but it was a rushed before-work visit.

We met my whole family and my best friend Holly at the house to cook burgers, eat nachos, and just hang out.  The previous owners left their swing-set in the backyard, which Lydia was ecstatic about.  We sat around on the floor in the living room and talked plans and ideas for the house.

Holly and I tackled the peeling edges of the brown paper in the kitchen [warning, exciting, glamorous actions shots forthcoming]:

peeling wallpaper

peeling wallpaper

And the afters:

kitchen

kitchen

Not much, but it was satisfying, and shouldn’t be too bad with the right tools (aka, more than just our fingernails).

Bryan provided the soundtrack:

My mom and I talked design choices, and my dad listened to all of my ideas and helped me come up with ways to implement them – moving lights around in the kitchen, scraping the popcorn ceilings, scraping and mudding the highly textured walls in the bathrooms and one of the bedrooms upstairs, peeling the carpet off the stairs and changing the side the railing is on for a more open feel….

staircase

My awesome dad also took a trip with us to Home Depot (conveniently located about five minutes away) for supplies to re-key the door locks – while there I picked up approximately fifty shades of white/cream paint chips in search of the perfect neutral for most of the house.
This is my super scientific method for selecting a paint color (and I apologize that I don’t have a picture/video of this, since it is oh so very scientific and interesting):

I lined up all fifty or so paint cards along the baseboard in the living room, so I could see them against the rug, white trim and the current yellow walls.  The yellow instantly made many of the colors look gray, so be aware that the current wall color can definitely skew the results.  However, I was looking for a warm neutral color, so this actually helped me get rid of anything with undertones that were too “cold”.

Then I stepped back and looked at all the paint chips (they seriously lined half of the room at this point) and tipped over any that jumped out at me as being too cold, too gray, too white, etc – pure knee jerk reaction.  Probably half of them gone at this point. The rule is – once a paint chip is turned over, it’s out of the running.
No second thoughts or second chances.

I put the remaining paint chips side by side and repeated the process – too green, too blue, too tan, too pink. 
When I was down to ten or so, I taped them up on the brick of the fireplace up against the white mantel, so that the yellow walls wouldn’t influence my decision too much.

I had already picked out my two favorites in the paint aisle of Home Depot, and was happy to see that they had made it this far (Artist Canvas and Navajo White by Behr). Some of the paint chips just didn’t have enough contrast up against the white trim – they just looked like a dirty white.  Finally we were down to four, and at this point I knew I could go with my gut instinct and my first favorite: Artist Canvas by Behr, a warm very faint tan which contrasts just enough with the white trim throughout the house to look intentional.

Of course, I say this now and I could start painting with it and just hate it, but at the moment, the plan is to paint most of the downstairs and hallways in the house Artist Canvas. Do I love color? Yes!  Do I still love dark walls? Yes, and they’ll be making an appearance, don’t worry. But the ceilings downstairs are none too tall, and I feel that keeping it bright will significantly help.

I can’t wait to start painting, but scraping and subsequently repainting the popcorn ceilings must come first.  Then wall paint, as budget allows.
SO WORDY.  If you’ve read this far, thank you.  I’ll try to use more pictures and less words in future posts.

~ Brynne

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Comments

  1. ashley simmons says

    October 5, 2016 at 9:40 pm

    Hi Brynne, I just googled Behr “artists canvas” and your blog came up. seems like you were going to paint much of your first house that color but looks like you ended up changing your mind. is that true? I have 5 gallons of it outside to paint my house with. painted a bit tonight and not sure I like it. seems too tan. too yellow. I really. hope I’m wrong. it’s absolutely beautiful in my sister’s interior. would love to hear your thoughts if you can reply.

    Reply
    • Brynne says

      October 6, 2016 at 8:38 am

      Hi Ashley,
      Yes, I ended up going with a different white from the Martha Stewart paint line (“Popcorn”), and I can’t remember exactly why I changed my mind 🙂 Actually, I ended up not being a fan of the new color I chose. It just looked like a dirty white on the walls in my house. It’s crazy how different colors can look in different spaces! I wish I could help more with your dilemma, but it sounds like you are on the right track with painting a sample and living with it for a bit!
      ~ Brynne

      Reply

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I believe the best kind of home is a gathered one, full of treasures with a story to tell. Join me in celebrating a lifestyle of finding and making beautiful things, right where you are. Read more...

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