Young House Love

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Those Times We Made Bad Painting Decisions

Once again it’s one of those weeks where we’ll all over the place. After stenciling the floor in our bath and closet, eking out some seasonal craftiness, and hanging extra thick crown in Clara’s room we’re now in the midst of sealing the stenciled floors, completing the canopy wall in Clara’s room, ripping up the old carpeting on our stairs, and not-so-patiently waiting to grout the sunroom tile floor as soon as things dry up out there (Mother Nature is playing a cruel joke on us with all of this rain). And in the middle of it all, we got this question that I thought would be interesting to think about. So here we go. Q: Do you two ever make painting mistakes? I feel like I’m always choosing the wrong color, or even worse, not picking anything at all because I’m so intimidated to make the wrong choice. After all these years of painting walls, trim, doors, ceilings, and even floors, do you have any tips for me? I’d love a roundup of paint mistakes you’ve made and what they taught you, mostly just to see if I can save myself from a similar fate! If you don’t have time to address this I understand, but I would really appreciate the help. And so would my walls :) – Marta F. A: Generally we like to think of ourselves as having an okay eye for picking paint colors. We usually go into things with a clear vision for what we want, can typically pick colors quickly and confidently (our typical method is to hold swatches up in the room we’ll be painting and observe them in different lighting situations), and we’ve been known to buy a few test pots whenever we can’t make a choice based solely on the swatches. But we’re certainly not immune to making bad calls when it comes to paint selection. And actually, those missteps have been great learning experiences. So thanks for the question, Marta. Here are…

YHL Top 5 Paint Color Screw Ups

#1 – The Amazing Technicolor Dream House. We’re starting with an oldie, but a goodie – our crazy colorful first attempt at a whole house color scheme. We chatted about it back in early 2010 here, and it has to be #1 on our list because it was such a giant mistake (as in, it affected nearly every room). Basically, we painted each space in our first house a different color that didn’t go with the next: tiffany blue here, mint green there, and, oh, let’s combine yellow and red brick in the next room #McDonalds #facepalm. It made the whole house look disconnected and chaotic, so we eventually course corrected and repainted nearly every room to give the house a more cohesive feeling. The good news is that our second pass at paint colors made sense together, and they made us so much happier. Wouldn’t you know it, our little home had a much easier flow when the rooms weren’t all fighting with each other and announcing their differences (“Now you’re in the light green room!” “Welcome to the bright blue room!” “Bienvenidos a the yellow and red room!) Bonus: the house felt at least 30% bigger. We love colorful houses, it’s just that a palette that flows is usually more successful than something random (when rooms clash with the ones next to them). For example, five colorful swatches that don’t go together might make a house feel choppy and compete-y, meanwhile five awesomely bold jewel toned swatches could be amazing (still fun, but they look good together). It’s hard to get walls right on the first try – especially in your first house. So don’t despair. Sometimes with painting, the second time’s the charm. LESSON LEARNED: Consider how paint colors will flow from room-to-room; and if it’s a small home or you’re at all worried about it feeling chopped up or chaotic, it doesn’t usually hurt to err on the side of fewer colors within your whole house palette (even if there are some bold ones in there, just make sure they mix well together to avoid that random rainbow effect).

Mispaint 1 First House

#2 – An Unappetizing Glow. One of most polarizing colors we’ve ever used was the grellow in our last kitchen. We lived with it for quite some time and still like it a lot as a color, but we ultimately deemed it the wrong choice for that kitchen. It was wrong for two reasons. For one, it was difficult to photograph accurately – but that’s not a problem most people have to worry about – and it’s not even a reason we would repaint an entire room (there was a whole lot of cutting in around those cabinets). The real reason for the change was the yellow-y hue that it cast on all of the white surfaces in the room. It made the cabinets and counters look cream – especially with the lights on. We typically prefer purer whites over tones like ivory or cream, so we repainted the room in a still-happy medium blue color to banish the yellow cast. Suddenly the counter, cabinets, and even the floor were a lot less yellow looking. It’s not super apparent in the counters and cabinets in the photo below (although the floor tone is noticeably different) but you can see it better in videos like this one. LESSON LEARNED: Consider how a paint color will affect other things in the room, especially when bold colors might cast their hue or reflect elsewhere (especially on glossy surfaces like counters and shiny floors for example).

Mispaint 2 Kitchen

#3 – Subtle Becomes Not-So-Subtle In Concentration. In general, it’s usually trickier to work with colors (bold or soft ones) over neutrals – but we love them. There does seem to be a formula for choosing them though. We typically have luck when we pick very desaturated versions of a color that we like on the swatch, often with a visible touch of gray or brown to them. So if we like the deep teal tone on one swatch, we’ll look for another swatch that looks like it’s that color, but muddier or grayer instead of quite as bold/pure. If we don’t do that, we find out that what looks good on a small swatch can actually read as a neon-crazypants-color (that’s a technical term) on the walls. Meanwhile, when you go for the more desaturated swatch that’s tempered with some gray or some brown as an undertone, it seems to read a lot stronger when it’s on the wall,  and we end up right where we hoped (not too muddy, but not too bright).

Dining Room Side

We knew we were breaking our own rule a bit when we selected a very pure, albeit very light, pink for Clara’s new bedroom ceiling. Unlike most colors we go for, it didn’t have a lot of gray or muddiness to the tone – it was just soft and pink, which we knew she would love, so we pressed on. We even did our usual first-step test to make sure we liked it (holding up the swatch on the surface we would be painting, since colors look different on different planes and we were going for the ceiling this time) and we viewed it in several lights before pulling the trigger. We love how the ceiling turned out, but our mistake was also painting her closet the same color on a whim. In the confined space, especially when it’s illuminated by her bright artificial closet light, that pink becomes waay more intense than we ever imagined (which we would have known if we observed the swatch in there too). It’s not that bad in the picture below because it’s in natural light, but in person it’s a bit much – especially when the light’s on. So it’s still a color mistake that we’d like to correct, but because Clara loves it we’re thinking it might remain on a wall or two in there (and we’ll add some other elements/colors to temper it). Sherry even dreams of cedar shake shingles on the slanted roof in there to make it feel like a playhouse, which could definitely help to tone down the pink. LESSON LEARNED: Don’t assume that a color that looks good in one room or on a certain surface will automatically look great in another, especially if the conditions (lighting, size, furnishings, etc) are different.

Mispaint 3 Claras Rom

#4 – Exteriors Are Counter-Intuitive. When we had the rotting siding repaired and repainted on our new house, it was actually the first time we were doing any major exterior paint color selection in seven years of homeownership. And you know what that means? At was a chance to make a huge mistake! Beyond our usual tricks of holding up swatches in multiple lights and against the plane to be painted, we had also heard that you generally should go darker with exteriors since the light hits them so strongly outside. But we still didn’t want to go so dark that the house looked gloomy or sad, so we went with Intellectual Gray by Sherwin Williams (the lighter swatch with the arrow on the top right pointing to it). Well, it wasn’t dark enough and in the bright sunlight our house gets in the afternoon, it almost completely washed out. We caught the error fast enough that we could switch to the noticeably darker Anonymous (the swatch to the left of that) in time, but we just as easily could have missed it until it was too late (I happened to be backing down the driveway as they painted the portico above our door and I couldn’t even see the paint, so I called Sherry in a panic and she ran outside to see if we could go a shade darker) Phew. Costly disaster narrowly missed. LESSON LEARNED: Unlike interiors, where we err on the side of lighter and less saturated colors, exteriors may just need the opposite – especially in spaces that get lots of sunlight. When in doubt, grab a sample pot of paint and go to town, because sometimes the swatches just don’t cut it for big jobs like this.

Paint Outside

#5 – Well, Not All Exteriors Are Counter-Intuitive. We wanted our new sunroom ceiling to be a subtle blue. Still distinctly blue, but not anything overwhelming (especially since we worried it would reflect into our living room behind it and make the walls in there an eerie smurf blue). So we settled on a swatch that looked subtle yet still blue… but as we started spraying it on outside, it was so faint that we had serious doubts. Sherry could hardly tell what was only primed and what had already been painted, and I couldn’t tell if the only reason I could distinguish them was because I was spraying them, so my mind knew which ones were which. UGH! We immediately started formulating a plan B. I was going to finish spraying everything with one coat, then once it was installed on the ceiling I’d roll on a second coat of the blue that was one step darker on the swatch. But we never needed plan B, because once the individual planks were installed – out of the direct light, against some crisp white trim, and visible en masse – our original paint color pick proved to be the exact subtle blue we had envisioned all along. So this was a near-miss painting mistake that we’ve never mentioned before… until now. LESSON LEARNED: No matter how hard you try to predict how well a color will work, you can’t really ever be totally sure you got it right (or wrong) until you see it completely done, completely dry (paint darkens as it dries), and in place – so don’t judge something laying on the ground outside if it’ll be hanging on a shady ceiling when it’s done.

Paint Sunroom

I think that last screw-up (well, almost-screw-up) gets to the key truth we’ve learned about choosing paint colors. No matter how hard you try or how many steps you take to ensure a good paint decision – you hold up the swatches on the right surface, you view it in multiple lighting situations, you paint big test swatches, maybe you even try photoshopping the space – you can’t predict what a color will truly look like until the paint job is fully complete. Until then, even the best paint color pickers run the risk that it won’t look perfect at a certain time of day, or that it won’t play well with other items in a room, or that once it’s on all four walls it somehow becomes more overwhelming (or underwhelming) than the swatch indicated. Is that the most comforting advice in the world? Probably not. But at least we have oops-ed our way into five paint lessons that we now have under our belts. And we hope they help you guys as you go about your paint-picking ways. Please feel free to share your paint mistakes (and what you learned) in the comment section too. In the end, there’s one mantra we like to repeat whenever we’re especially nervous about a choice, which still happens to this day. Say it with me. “It’s only paint!”

Our Favorite Paint Colors

If you’re having trouble picking the right color to paint your room, check out these detailed deep-dive posts about our favorite paints:

Comments

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Yeah, we didn’t realize until we had the real color on the walls and the color matched color in the same space (on the floor) how different they were! Definitely an enlightening lesson. I think for small projects like painting an accessory or something we might still try it, but for walls it’s probably best to use swatches for the base you’ll use (and not color match since it seems to vary a lot).

      xo
      s

  2. Stephanie Zercher says

    We once chose what we thought was a nice neutral tan – only it looked like flesh-colored pinkish-tan when it was on the walls! It was scary-looking – like something out of a nightmare.

    Reply

  3. JA says

    I actually love Clara’s closet. Maybe its really way more intense in person, but does that really matter? Its a closet and one is thus less “assaulted” by the color then if it were in a room one was actually hanging out in. I think the way it “plays” with the ceiling is awesome.

    Now just so you don’t think I’m some sort of “you guys are always awesome” fangirl, I have to tell you that I hate the blue ceiling in the sunroom. Unless it reads very very different in person it clashes with your brick wall. And no this isn’t a case of “lots of way to do it right.”

    Red brick is very very tricky to work paint with and I just don’t think you guys have totally wrapped your heads around this yet. (um, your front door really bugs me). Especially the fact that pictures you might see of other red brick house have different tones than yours. But I think you guys in general are awesome so not trying to be obnoxious.

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Haha, thanks JA! I definitely think the most frustrating thing about being a blogger is that photos and real life are two different animals. So just come over and see our ceiling and door in person and tell me what you think! They could still be completely be eye-assaultingly horrible. What do we know? We just like ’em. This is our third brick house (all of them have had different tones) so we can certainly agree that it’s a tricky thing. In person the blue ceiling is super subtle, so we think the bold/demanding brick + white trim (to temper it) + the slightest hint of soft blue up top = a nice mix that doesn’t fight at all (that blue paint couldn’t compete with the brick if it wanted to because it’s about 100 shades lighter). Maybe when we do our house tour video I’ll pop outside and do a loop around the house for ya since video tends to be more true to life sometimes.

      xo,
      s

  4. Kaesey says

    Hee hee, I like that little John Cusack pic you snuck in there….. =)

    So, paint – we all make mistakes! I can’t remember how many colors we tried in our living room before settling on a blue that I never would have expected to choose. (Helps that we have TONS of white trim.) The ceiling was easy – pale blue in the panels – but all my attempts at a neutral on the walls looked weird. Enter the blue. In our dining room, I like the wall color above the chair rail but not below – it’s blah. I might repaint darker, like mahogany, or just do the whole wall in red.

    So we learned our lesson and when we painted the front hall we put up swatches of something like 12 colors and left them there for a week. Every day a few would come down, especially tans that turned peach at night with the lights on. We settled on a color that is now our go-to for hall spaces and looks good with the living room’s blue, the dining room’s red, etc.

    Reply

  5. Megan @ Delightful Domicile says

    Oh paint, ye be a cruel mistress. In my one house, I have repainted three rooms and plan on doing another two. So pretty much everything has been at least two colors. The biggest mistake I’m hoping to change into a win is our guest bathroom. It’s painted this beautiful dark blue with a touch of green but since there’s zero natural light in the room the dark color makes for an exceptionally dark and somewhat deary room. I thought if I added crisp, white beadboard it would help reflect what little light there is and brighten things up a bit. Hoping to tackle that project this winter so we’ll see.

    Reply

  6. Desiree C. says

    This is a great post about lessons and really couldn’t have come at a better time for me. Too bad my version isn’t an “It’s only paint!” lesson, but rather an “It’s only a sofa (gulp) lesson!” Readers of YHL: Learn from my mistake! Measure you space 15 times before purchasing a piece of furniture! We are now eating a $350 restocking fee because we’ve grown hesitant with our overestimating what our small ranch-style living room can handle. Yikes. On a positive note, this post helped remind me that mistakes are lessons learned. It’s really a part of life. Sometimes an expensive one, but in the words of Honey Boo Boo’s mom, “It is what it is.”

    Reply

  7. Kristen says

    For some reason, my parents let me 100% pick my room color in middle school with no adjustments by them. My room was DARK pink, and my closet was…wait for it……. bright orange. Just thinking about it makes me cringe. A few years later, we repainted it a light tan color with a white closet – MUCH better!

    Here, so you can cringe with me…
    The pink color was something like this – http://kimscrane.com/images/Dark%20Pink%20Kraft%20Paper.jpg

    and orange color something like this – http://dnkenterprises.com/PashminaColors/Thin_BrOrange.jpg

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Haha, I like it! Sounds like a teenage Moroccan oasis! My mom let me paint clouds on my closet and use wood stain over my white trim (picture smeary wood over white streaks). Oh man, it was bad.

      xo
      s

  8. haverwench says

    “Basically, we painted each space in our first house a different color that didn’t go with the next”

    When I went on a summer trip to France during high school, we toured Monet’s house at Giverny, and he had done exactly the same thing. And he didn’t just do the walls in all different colors: pretty much everything in a given room was the same BRIGHT color. It was hideous. And this was a guy who painted for a living!

    Reply

    • haverwench says

      P.S. I think it’s partly for fear of making the same mistake that we’ve been living in this house for six years now and pretty much all the walls are the same off-white shade they were when we moved in. Well, that and it’s a small house in which pretty much every room is used every day, so painting a single room takes away a big chunk of our living space. But we’re even more hesitant to go to all the trouble of painting when it might turn out to be THE WRONG COLOR–and then we’d have to either live with it or make the whole room unusable again.

  9. GreenInOC says

    I loved the grellow but the contrast of the cabinets & floor in the pictures with grellow and then blue is pretty astonishing, good call on changing it!

    I had my house painted, vaulted ceilings lots of angles – real pain in the tush. A very artistic friend helped my design and pick out all the colors. I used colors from the same family as well as different percentages.

    I loved the end result. He kept saying that one wall, the one with the TV that gets the most attention other than the stair wall, was the “wrong” color. I couldn’t see it plus I loved it but he was artistic and relentless.

    Tried the color on the wall and it looked fine. He said he would paint it and if I hated it paint it back. I didn’t like it as much going up but since I didn’t hate i, I told myself that he was the artist and to give it a fair chance. It took him forever because of the height and cutting in on the angles and ceiling.

    Next morning, the light hit it and it was a chalky blue. When the test patch went up it went on a part of the wall that didn’t get as much light which I never thought about until that morning.

    He decided that he couldn’t repaint it back because it took too long and was way too hard the first time (when I had it professionally done, they needed scaffolding). ARGH. I still have the chalky blue wall with two little dabs on the non-chalky blue ceiling. So frustrating.

    Reply

  10. Laurie says

    One more thing to remember is that you can look all you want on Pinterest, that color is not going to look the same in your house. I looked at a LOT of colors on Pinterest trying to make decisions for my kitchen but the same exact color looks completely different in every photo. It is NOT the place to help make color decisions. I think it just ended up overwhelming me.

    I’m a big fan of the paint pot samples because if you like the color anyway, you’ll use it somewhere down the line. I’ve already painted two pieces of furniture with wall color rejects!

    Reply

  11. Emily says

    Guilty- especially of #1. Put ALL the color on the walls! No no no. I painted my office a shade of blue that looked lovely on the swatch…but once it got on the walls it read PURPLE. Yuck. I lived with it for almost 2 years and then finally repainted and I am SO happy with the color/layout I ended up changing to: http://davenportdiy.com/2012/07/weekend-work.html

    Unfortunately there are probably 3 other rooms in our house that I’d like to repaint due to my first color choice…and brilliant me decided that when I first painted, it would be a good idea to paint the closets of said rooms the same color as the room itself, which means removing all the shelves and repainting the closet too. Ugh…

    Reply

  12. Rhiannon says

    My worst color experience was in my first house. We had a gorgeous, sunny eat-in kitchen with light wood cabinets and I wanted to keep it sunny and warm all day long. I thought I wanted an orange shade, grabbed some swatches, hemmed and hawed and kind of picked one. Unbeknownst to be me, my husband wanted to surprise me with a painted kitchen. I came home one day to a painted kitchen, I was grateful for what he did, but it looked like Kraft Mac & Cheese was smeared on my walls. I dealt with it for the rest of the time we owned the house. Funny thing is, we put it on the market, first family through bought it and the Mom of the family commented that she LOVED the kitchen. Ya know, thank goodness for her, she made me feel so much better about my Mac & Cheese kitchen! :)

    Thank you for your stories!
    Rhiannon

    Reply

  13. Nancy says

    This post couldn’t have come sooner.. sigh.. Coincidentally, the same weekend you painted your master closet/bath “reverie” pewter, I painted mines Chinchilla Gray by Martha Stewart. After seeing so many gray bathrooms on Pinterest, I went to HD and picked up a whole lotta gray swatches (who knew there were so many hues) and hung them on my walls.. Over two weeks, my husband and I narrowed it down to Chinchilla Gray. It took two weeks bc I didn’t want to make a “painting mistake.” After spending a longer than expected time painting every corner, edge, $%(O*^# your bathroom post came up and I’m now regretting my color choice.. =(
    Why didn’t I think to use Revere Pewter???

    Reply

  14. Ellen Greeley says

    Don’t we all have a story of a painting faux pas. Ours happened this past summer as we were trying to update the outside of our house by painting the shutters. I knew I wanted something in the blue family so we removed the shutters and headed to the paint store with our swatch. The helpful associate assured me we would need to prime our black shutters in order to paint the color we had chosen. So we headed home with paint had primer and proceeded to prime all our shutters. Then on to a coat of paint on the first shutter which we quickly realized was WAAAAY too light. So back to the paint store and a few steps down on swatch – another coat of paint and still not working. At this point I was quite frustrated and decided to use an online tool which let me choose a house with a similar exterior (brownish brick) and change/visualize the different colors. And then I was asking myself why I hadn’t started here. I found a deep midnight blue was just the look I was going for. So back to the paint store and home to cover our primed white shutters with several coats of midnight blue. We were so pleased with the result, but in the end realized that had we used the online tool to begin with we probably would have gotten by with just one coat (and no primer!) Paint lesson learned! And life lesson learned – my husband rocks – he was so gracious about my many color choice mistakes!

    Reply

  15. dkl says

    I love the idea of a “pick this not that” article. For the life of me I can’t see undertones and keep getting surprised when grey or taupe looks green (or blue) or a color looks like a crayon or alternatively muddy on the wall.

    Reply

  16. Carrie says

    When we first moved into our house, I chose a yellow for my open kitchen/living room thinking it would be a warm, cheerful color. It was absolutely the wrong shade of yellow and somehow managed to feel cold. I lived with it for a year, but for my birthday, my hubby let me pick a new color. After a whole lot of looking, swatches, and Photoshop, the winner is Benjamin Moore Wedgewood Gray. I can’t wait to repaint!

    Reply

  18. Jen says

    This post and the one yesterday about Clara’s room have been great timing. We’re expecting our first child in March 2014 and I’ve been trying to come up with a plan for the nursery that doesn’t require replacing the carpet, which is in perfectly good shape but is also 1990s deep hunter green.

    The pictures of Clara’s room in yesterday’s post started me thinking about painting the nursery walls white (the current cream color just emphasizes the green carpet) and the ceiling and closet a light blue (maybe the one you used for the porch ceiling). Given today’s post, I’m still leaning toward the blue ceiling, but maybe we’ll just do white in the closet. And we’ll definitely make sure to test out swatches in multiple lighting situations!

    Thanks again for the timely posts!

    Reply

  19. Katy @ The Non-Consumer Advocate says

    I have different colors in every room of my house, and I love it! Oregon is dark and you can’t count on light coming from the windows. However, we painted the entryway/stairwell/coat closet a dark forest green, (which somehow works) but the closet is too dark to find anything. We literally have to use a flashlight to find anything. But since the “closet” is actually just a weird outcropping without a door, it has to stay that way.

    Oh well . . .

    Reply

  20. Andrea says

    My paint trick is to not go out of town without my husband. I came back once to a neon green dining room and a second time to a submarine yellow bathroom!

    He was going for the surprise factor. I was definitely surprised!

    Reply

  21. Elena says

    First off, great post. Very helpful to me as I’m trying to pick out the right shades for my office and diningroom. Secondly, loving the Lloyd Dobler shout out!

    Reply

  22. Debbie says

    We had one room we had to get the paint re-tinted a different color. After that I started going with BM paints. I’ve tried 3 different shades and I love them all. We have a local family owned paint store and they have helped me pick out paints. I buy my paint in February and they are usually on sale when no one is painting. My walls are in tough shape and they have flat finishes that you can scrub.

    Reply

  23. Lil says

    picking paint colors is tricky! When we were preparing to paint our new (to us) house, I bought 4 test pots and put them on 3 different walls – 2 in the front room and 1 in the dining room. The paint colors looked COMPLETELY different on each of the 3 walls. We eventually went with the same color we had and loved in our first house (this is our 3rd house).

    I usually do swatches, then test pots – big squares on the walls – and live with them for a couple of days before deciding.

    Reply

  24. HeatherB says

    Speaking of how the same color can look different indifferent spaces…

    I actually had a friend who commented on my “great color choices” in our new house, how the different yellows flowed so well through the house: the light buttery yellow in the front rooms, the deep golden yellow in the family room, the bright vibrant yellow in the hall, even the greeny yellow in the kitchen–all so different but so connected. I just bit my lip and wasn’t sure what to say…it’s all the same color! lol

    Reply

  25. Alecia says

    Oh, please don’t change Clara’s closet! She loves it and it’s just the inside of a closet, so who cares if it’s a little bright?

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Aw, thanks Alecia! I just want to make it more playhouse-y in there (ever since we moved here I pictured that being a little hideaway for her) so I’d never undo something she loves just to tone it down, but when I told her I wanted to add shingles to that slanted ceiling and maybe some playful wallpaper to the back wall she was all in. I think she thinks wallpaper is something she can scribble on, so we’ll have to see where we end up! Haha!

      xo
      s

  26. Lilly says

    I have to say — i have loved the neutrals you have picked for your home(s). I’ve even found a few of them in my stack of random swatches I picked up for our new home.

    I’m curious though, is it just my monitor or do you process/color correct your photos before posting? I love how edgecomb gray works in your home, it really brightens things up, but the swatch in my hallway (half of which gets bright light) it looks ridiculously dark! I’m thinking i’ll definitely have to use trick #3 to find the right neutral for this area. We’re planning a “different shades/tones of blue” for the living room and two downstairs bedrooms and kitchen with a soft gray bathroom (the stairwell is painted this gorgeous dark blue gray), so something soft and a little muddy might bring it together. or am i totally color blind?

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      That sounds really pretty Lilly! As for your question about our photos, we usually just crop things in photoshop (or straighten them if they’re wonky) although we’ll occasionally brighten an under-exposed shot or darken an over-exposed one. But we never alter photos to look less like real life (it’s always about trying to make them look more like real life if we edit them). We’ve heard from so many people about Edgecomb Gray though – apparently it reads so differently in every spot (heck, it even reads differently in our living room than our foyer in the same house). So it really seems to be a mutable color! Maybe do a half-tone for your walls if you looks too dark?

      xo,
      s

    • heather says

      Lilly,

      We have edgecomb gray in our kitchen and it looks light in there, but when I painted it somewhere else in our house it looked significantly darker. I had to double check to make sure I grabbed edgecomb and not revere pewter. It definitely is one of the colors that has crazy morphing abilities.

  27. Helen B says

    How do you guys always read my mind! We’re repainting the interior of my parents house for the first time since they built it in 1990. Our color palette is small, just two warm grays, the lightest colors, that are right next to each other on the paint chip and a pale blue that’s in the same range. We decided to go a little crazy in the kitchen, though, and used the third shade of grays from the same chip on the ceiling and underside of a soffit that’s in there (both were formerly blue). With the soffit done it looked great! But as soon as the paint hit the ceiling the kitchen became a cave. I’ll be repainting the kitchen today.

    Reply

  28. Cassie says

    Oh this came at the perfect time! I just decided I really don’t like the color we painted our family room a couple months ago. Only bad part is my husband really doesn’t like painting, so I may have to re-do it myself (which I’m totally good with. He thinks I’m crazy because I enjoy it)!

    I have a question though: what are your thoughts on paints with primer in them? I feel like every time you guys paint (at least recently), you prime separately. Is that better? Or is it just because you’re painting a LOT of blue trim? When we initially painted, our walls were white so we did a paint + primer in one, but I’m not sure what direction I should go to paint over them.

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      I think for walls they can be great! We usually just use separate cans because we have them already and it’s cheaper than getting them together if we already have primer. I would never use them for painting furniture though (I’m way too tied to good primer separately for furniture since it gets beat on so much and it’s slicker than walls so it needs a strong foundation). Hope it helps!

      xo
      s

  29. Melissa says

    I may have missed this–what was the color that was painted on the porch ceiling? I LOVE it (and I have a track record of picking out the wrong color. Your choice is so RIGHT!)

    Reply

  30. heather says

    I’ve definitely had paint fails. I have a weird thing where I love bright/bold colors and painted ceilings online (pinterest, etc.) but when they’re in my own house I cringe to the moon and back. This was not realized until I painted our bathroom ceiling yellow. In photos I was like “oohh pretty!” in real life I was like “ahhhg make it stop!”. Apparently I just love bright bold colors in photos.

    I’m also with you on the muted tones, and I like keeping colors fairly consistent. To help our downstairs flow to our upstairs through our huge two story stairwell we painted the back of the stairwell a beautiful grayish blue/green color (depends on the time of day the sun hits it), which is the same color as the upstairs guest room – and it will also likely be the color I use somewhere downstairs (bathroom, office, one of them) OR I’ll tie in accessories with the same color downstairs so there’s a consistent flow throughout the house. I think my preference of muted neutrals/colors comes because I really want all the beautiful wood work in the house to shine and not compete.

    Reply

  31. Erin says

    Oh, man…our living room has an exposed brick wall and a weird wall that sticks out over what used to be a fireplace. We painted the weird stick-out wall a dark caramel color, which was gorgeous with the brick, the original wood floors and high ceilings, and the rest of the walls a nice toasty color two shades lighter called Baked Bread.

    Except it wasn’t baked bread. It was Melted Barbie Skin. It was HORRIBLE. Even though it was only on two and a half walls, one of which is mostly windows, it was terrible. We laughed so hard. We lived with it for a week before painting over it with a warm, sunny honey wheat. SO MUCH BETTER. I’ll definitely keep these tips in mind as we tackle the rest of the house!

    Reply

  32. Alli says

    We had a green color (SW Majolica Green) that we originally had in our master bedroom, but after a year or two it just felt too closed in and dated to me. When my husband was on a business trip, I chose an extremely light grey/blue and painted the walls, I then chose the next darkest and did thick stripes on our headboard wall. Best decision I ever made. I walk in that room every day and am still so happy with how calm and relaxing it is.
    Our bathroom on the other hand, I chose a color (SW Chelsea Mauve) to use and have been relatively happy with it, although it is a bit more purpley than I had originally thought. Recently though, due to discussions of painting another room in our house- Me: “I think I kinda want to repaint the guest room.” Dear Husband: “If you want to paint something, maybe the upstairs bathroom should be first.”
    He’s apparently disliked it since day one (6 years ago, ha!). I have the new color picked out, which is a bit of a “greige”.

    Reply

  33. Jennifer R. says

    So timely – spent weeks deciding on a kitchen color. Put up the swatches, painted testers, and still it didn’t look good. Just repainted and it’s perfect now!

    Reply

  34. Rachel @ Betty LIVIN says

    Thank you so much for the tips! I am having a heck of a time picking paint colours for my home because all my inspirational pins are different colours. I think I am going to repaint a couple of rooms after reading this. Thanks!

    Reply

  35. AnnMarie says

    Confession: I slapped up 2 coats of primer in our kitchen….uh, 2 months ago (yikes!) simply because I can’t choose a color. Thanks for writing this post…time to pull up my Petersik get on that big girl pants. Is that a thing? Yes I’m convinced.

    Reply

  37. Patti says

    Good advice here. I’ve made so many painting mistakes in my life I finally came to the realization that I don’t really like color on the wall. I was always trying to paint according to what was ‘in’ at the time but never liked it. So now I stick with very neutral colors on the wall (navajo white anyone?) and get my color in curtains, accessories, art, etc. You really have to be true to yourself and don’t be afraid to embrace what speaks to you.
    Oh and Christopher Lowell, yes, he was it back in the day! I think he had his own line of products with Burlington Coat Factory??

    Reply

  38. ashley jensen says

    The method I use I learned from ya’ll! Only it takes me a few months of moving the chips around to make a final decision. I just redid my daughters room using the same process but actually painted 4 differnt shades of blue all around her room and thought on it for a month while she knew exactly she wanted the whole time, which I was aware of! Of course the color we went with was close to her choice since it is her room after all! Luckily she didn’t mind all the squares everywhere since I also painted a flower, a heart and some other things fun for her to look at until I made my decision!

    Reply

  39. Kate says

    My dad likes to joke that my rooms are smaller now than when we moved in because of the number of coats of paint I’ve put on them :) Whatever, I say. Life is too short to live with paint colors you don’t like. I’d rather suck it up and paint in an afternoon then cringe everytime I walk into a room.

    Aside from swatches and paint samples, I like to google colors to see how others have used them. Obviously, it’s under different conditions (light, furniture, etc), but it’s another tool to help pick the right color. It’s how I found my exterior paint colors!

    Reply

  41. janell says

    You mentioned your sunroom tile grouting…. have you looked at epoxy grout? It’s waterproof, stainproof and NEVER has to be sealed, comes in lots of colors, plus cleans up with vinegar/water. I used Laticrete SpectraLOCK PRO on my kitchen and bathroom backsplash, but it is suitable for outside applications too. Got it at Lowes and it was a breeze to use. They recommend an epoxy grout float but I’ve found it easier to just use my gloved hands. It has held up great. It’s a more $ option, but the “never have to remember to seal it, which is good ’cause I can rarely remember what my name is let alone keep up on grout maintance” part really sold me ;)

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Thanks Janell! We already bought our grout (we love the color) but if we see it in epoxy grout we’ll have to check it out (the stuff we bought is returnable so that’s nice).

      xo
      s

  42. Ted says

    Your two exterior paint observations are from the same effect. The reason the siding needed to be darker is that you have direct exterior light (sunlight) on the siding and that will wash out the color, so you more color saturation. Your porch ceiling only gets indirect light because it is underneath the roof and hence it looks more like an indoor surface and needs less saturation to see the color. My guess is that when you originally painted the ceiling pieces and couldn’t tell if you had painted them, that you were painting with them on the ground exposed to direct sunlight, hence the sunlight was washing out the blue. Once you took them out of direct lighting, then the blue became less washed out.

    Reply

  43. KatK says

    Maybe someone’s already said this, but the paint also reflects off of itself inside a room and the color can change. For instance, the color of paint on one accent wall surrounded by white walls will be really different than the same paint on all four walls, because the light reflects off of the walls and intensifies the color.

    Also, the quality of light makes a huge difference. I really love my green-grey living room color in the warm light of a summer afternoon, but the cold light of winter turns the color a sickly institutional hue. So light throughout the day, and even throughout the year can change your color.

    Reply

  44. Kara says

    First time writing on your blog! I’m an art teacher and I love all that you have done and are doing! Being a teacher I’m forced to be budget friendly in all of my projects! I too painted my somewhat large living room in a grey that has left it totally blah, my adjacent kitchen is a pale blue…and now i’m torn do go with the same blue in the living room to make the room feel cohesive, or a pale golden yellow to brighten it up and compliment the blue…or something dark and bold which makes me afraid it will be too dark feeling. Ahhhh. We also have the Revere (minus the I) grey throughout the rest of the house. What would you do? :)
    Kara

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      I think the pale golden yellow sounds so pretty! I’d get a few swatches and even bring some pots of paint home to see which ones you like and hopefully nail the right one!

      xo
      s

  45. Rachel K says

    When picking a yellow paint color for my sons nursery, I wanted a soft creamy yellow that would go well with gray and white furniture. The color I picked out seemed too close to white when I painted a sample on the wall, so I stupidly went one shade darker on the swatch without testing it first. The result was nacho cheese yellow, the color of doritos. It was so horrrible. I lived with it for a week before breaking the news to my husband that we had to repaint. It was such a huge pain that I will never make that mistake again! We ended up using Owl Gray which I know you’ve shown before on the blog as one of your picks. It’s a great color!

    Reply

  46. Tirsa says

    Thanks for all the great tips. As a color, color, and more color loving person, I have made my share of mistakes too. My husband just smiles when he sees me painting now. One thing that I noticed in our second house that I didn’t in our first is that the hue on the wall will change with the seasons. (not all the rooms) Maybe it is because we are now surrounded by trees and we weren’t in the first house. I don’t know. I love the color in our bedroom walls in the summer, fall, and winter – Spring not so much. Maybe is it’s the angle of the sun in the sky with all the trees plus where the house faces… Who knows. (ha, ha, ha)

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      That’s so interesting! I wonder if you have a ton of trees around the house and when they lose their leaves you get more light but when spring comes the fresh green leafiness blocks the sun and casts some yellow-green reflections into the house and changes the colors?

      xo
      s

    • Tirsa says

      I think that’s it! I hadn’t thought of that. The new leaves in the spring are lighter in color and have more yellow in them than say summer or fall. No wonder! We have many trees in the back and sides of the house to the point that we don’t get a lot of natural light. I used BM Majestic Blue which is a medium dark teal and in the spring it looks more like peacock! It loses it’s slightly grayed undertone. Oh well. I think I can live with it for that one season of the year.

      Thanks for brainstorming with me. :)

  47. Carli says

    Posts like these are so encouraging! I always wonder how people choose several different paint colours for their home without it feeling like a clown palace. It’s always my fear that multiple colours will be….compete-y….as you said ;) This was very helpful. Thanks for elaborating on whats worked and not worked. Appreciate it :)

    Reply

  48. MC says

    Great tips! We just moved into a new home 3 weeks ago. I think the colors were picked by a professional interior designer – there are three tones of beige (dark, medium, and light) plus a medium blue (much like the color of your response comments) throughout the house and some coordinated wallpaper. Well, I didn’t want my little girls to be in a blue room – so we painted it a very light pink (took 4 coats,even after priming, ugh!). The girls like it but, um, it totally doesn’t match the rest of the house! Or fit with the carpet… Not sure what to do…if anything…at least with the beigy-ness going on, we can take our time finding what works for us! Adventures in painting!

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Hmm, maybe you can hang curtains and art and if those have colors that are in other parts of the house it’ll tie it in. Sort of like “bridging” those colors?

      xo
      s

  49. Leti says

    I love the tip about choosing muddier or more washed out versions of a color you like as a way of ending up with the color that you want. My boyfriend and I moved into our new house over the summer, and I’ve been painting ever since! I’ve tried using swatches, etc, but there have been a couple mistakes along the way and there are two important things I’ve learned along the way. 1) Lowes will take returns, with no questions on “unopened” paint. So, there have been times where I’ve opened a gallon, dipped out enough paint to start edging, realized I disliked the color, and returned it. 2) I’ve also learned that if you don’t like the color, it’s better to stop sooner rather than later. For myself, at least, if I don’t like a color in small doses, I’m not going to like it more when it’s covering an entire wall. Better to stop and get back to the drawing board.

    Reply

  50. Meghan says

    The need for color in one’s first house probably has to do with not being able to paint rentals…my apartment has those “lovely” offwhite-ish walls, and I can’t wait to be able to put some color up once I own a place!

    Reply

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