Color - up on the wall
May 27th, 2007 at 9:05 pm (painting)
Having moved into a new house a few weeks ago; I have an irresistable urge to paint in some rooms.
The biggest urge comes from the dining room. It’s yellow. Sunshiney overly perky yellow. I have been looking at paint chips for a long time. In my last house I was able to do a really great accent color behind the cabinets, and the rest of the room was a neutral. This kitchen/dining room isn’t arranged quite so nicely.
The only colors that are striking me as correct are a sage green; a neutral (boring) or changing the yellow to something I can actually like. So I went to the paint store today and bought 1 gallon of neutral (for downstairs in the craft room that looks like it hasn’t been painted in about 8 years or more), and 2 quarts; 1 of “Anjou Pear” and 1 of “Wild Raisin”.
I immediately opened up the Anjou Pear, and whipped out a big swatch on the wall:
Colors are so-so accurate. New color on the left (next to the window), still wet, so it’s shinier than it should be, and old color on the right. You can definately see how the sunshiney yellow is really really yellow. In the evenings when it’s dimmer in that room; it’s not so bad. In the morning with the sun, the green in the yellow takes over and it’s overly bright. (Gee, it looks great when it’s dark!)
While I like sage green, I am thinking I want to avoid green, because of all the windows in the room; you’d end up with layers of green; not really what I want. Plus we have a green couch and chair in the room about 4 feet away, and I don’t want to have an ‘all green house’. The ceiling is a cedar ceiling, so it’s very dark on it’s own - a super dark color on the walls would probably swallow the whole room. I painted up a small swatch of the raisin (which will require about 3 coats to really cover well), and it is very very purple. I think that one won’t end up in the dining room; I might see if it’d look good in our master bedroom as an accent wall.
Other possibilities - going back to a green, and a medium sage green (not too dark, not too light); but I don’t think it’d look good in the actual kitchen. Or painting it all a neutral, my ever favorite Shadow Beige. I have enough for the downstairs room that I can do a sample in the dining room/kitchen to see how I like it.
Abigail said,
May 28th, 2007 at 12:24 am
I’m pretty sure we have that same color card (midtone & deep)! Our wall is Ripe Currant. We almost went with something Merlot but it was too purple. I like the new yellow.
Mary the Digital Knitter said,
May 28th, 2007 at 2:13 pm
Cedar is, well, cedar colored and that’s not always easy to match. It’s usually got a lot of pink, but it’s orange. How might a light blue-y green, more blue than green, like copper patina, look?
Incidentally, yellow is very hard to cover. Something about it being full of natural pigments or something. I had to put two coats of Cielo Blanco (warm white) over pale yellow. My new house is entirely Frazee Swiss Coffee and my older house is going to be, also. So’s my mom’s house, which we’re getting ready to put on the market. I love white walls and ceilings.
teresa said,
May 28th, 2007 at 8:12 pm
i like the red too