"Oh, looks like you are painting. What color did you choose?"

my house in all it's glory...

None of them yet. Seriously, my house has looked like this since November of 2006. I am not even kidding. It is my dirty little secret. It is a joke with all my close friends and family who are here a lot. I always say "before the next (birthday party, family holiday event, next milestone) we will get the paint done." But that first requires choosing a color. I can tell when someone is a new friend or has not been here in a long time because they come in and say "Oh, looks like you are painting. What color did you choose?" None, of course. I found colors I liked in a Restoration Hardware catalog and they sell the paint samples in the store. I bought samples. I liked a color from a new hotel we stayed at in California. They got a hold of the owner and got me the paint code for Sherwin Williams and I bought a quart. I got a Pottery Barn Benjamin Moore color and bought a quart. On and on...

Why am I repainting what I consider to be the perfect Red? Why would I change when people come over and say "Your red is awesome, your olive green is beautiful. Your camel color is really nice." Honestly, I like all my colors. I am just tired of my cave in the family room. It gets next to no natural light and when most of the year we have the blinds turned closed to help keep cool, it is dark. No, it doesn't make the room smaller, just dark. So, I have been wanting to lighten up for a while. Obviously. I just now set a deadline that i would be done before the end of February. And since more neutral colors are more appealing to future buyers, I figured I needed to go that route.

Oh, but then I got crafty last night! I was sitting and looking at the colors on the wall and said to Steve "I like the green of that one, but the darkness of that one but the tint of brown in that one..." So I dug out all my paint samples (6 lined up on my counter) and started to make "dump paint" - mixing all of them in different combos to see what happens. Dump #1. Too Green. Dump #2. Too Dark. Dump # 3. Holy Moly - I CREATED my bedroom color!! Seriously! I called Steve in to look at it sampled on my bedroom wall and he didn't believe me that I put a color on the wall until he moved to see the sheen and see that it was wet.

My bedroom paint color...not a great picture but I do like the color - it looks like a gallery, no?

It did end up drying a bit darker but it made me realize...has the perfect interior color been under my nose for almost 6 years and I didn't know it? The weird thing is I always thought that color "just missed" the mark a little bit but my bedroom and bathroom are the only colors I have not been trying to change in 6 years! This picture doesn't even accurately get the color but I like how black framed art looks against it and I have a lot of that in the rest of my house.

We are going to paint the nursery/sewing room today (yes - I have master plan to share my sewing/hobby room with my babe) and I am going to paint it the new neutral color. If I like it well enough (since it is also in my bedroom!) I will paint the rest of the house that color. I will also be doing something I saw in a Model Home in Colorado. The entire interior was painted the same color but when the designer got to the "kids rooms" they added an accent color either with an accent wall, a bold horizontal stripe or painting the top two feet of the wall the accent bedroom color...all while leaving it mostly the neutral color. Once I get my fabric swatches of the crib set I am ordering (NOT MAKING THIS TIME!) then I will pick an accent color. I am thinking the bold wide horizontal stripe look just above crib level, maybe 18" wide.

Glen on the roof spraying the paint. It is looking really nice.

Exterior Update - the rains of late last week and Glen's weekend trip to Tucson got us a little behind but he is finishing today and so far - it is a huge improvement. I love the new door handle and hopefully the new lights will be up today!!!