Pain-tfully Challenged

Before we can tackle going BEYOND the colored walls, we have to take a minute and talk about THE color of the walls.  When you are ready to paint and pick a color, does your wall look like this……

Are you about to pull your hair out from the 15 shades of brown that are plastered across your living room?  Or perhaps the 16^th shade in your hair after mixing 13 and 14 together.  If you are so cross eyed from picking paint colors because you want something different, that you end up choosing the safest beige in safe-ville…..then this post is for you.  The easiest way to pick a paint color is to find something you love and work off of that.

Today we are going to use my inspiration photo, I have put it on a brown wall. I would say a good 7 out of 10 of you are thinking, “Yes, that looks fantastic, its neutral and goes with everything.” This is partially true….but it is also predictable and quite frankly doesn’t compliment this picture as well as it could.

The idea that a neutral is a brownish or beige tone is a thing of the past. There are so many tones of COLOR that can be considered a neutral. PLEASE!, I’m begging you to bring more color into your life. My general rule of thumb is to pick a color you like, and then chose a tone that tends to be a grayer version of the color. This will give you a neutral with a lot more depth and …..da da dunn…COLOR!!  I will demonstrate below.

First, let’s start by talking about this print and why I find it to be inspirational. It’s amazing to me that so much vibrant, yet natural color can be found on something as delicate as the underside of a flower. It’s the juxtaposition of a soft white daisy with a bright vivacious blue. It brings a peace and calmness yet a reminder of a spring day where life is blooming all around you. If I had a blank canvas of a room with no other elements to contend with, I would choose a color that kept the serenity of this print.    

Here are a few tones that I consider soft neutrals….

I can imagine these colors in my bedroom at a beach house, this print sitting over my refreshingly white (and made) bed. French doors opposite the bed, opened to a balcony and white sheers blowing softly in the wind. Can you picture it? Me too…… But you don’t have to have a beach house to get that feeling everyday of your life. Your balcony can overlook a back yard or a pool. You don’t even have to have a balcony. Use what you have and create what you want.

What if you were adventurous and ACTUALLY decided to choose a color with some substance, for instance a green or gold? Most of you might chose to go with these……

I know I know, It looked good on a swatch, and the sample on the wall showed promise but when you got it on a full blown wall it screamed at you.  These colors aren't actually that bad, but certainly a little louder then I might enjoy. The problem is, nothing that is 1”x1” with a plethora of other colors around it, is going to give you a sense of what it will look like on your wall. And while pasting these colors on the wall or painting swatches that are 12”x12” might help, you still have to think about how it would read over a larger space.  Colors with gray tones, have a tendency to help give you color… beautiful and vibrant color….. without the headache.  Look how a little bit of gray can change your perspective.

Now can’t you imagine how beautiful these spaces can be? Can you picture yourself sipping a nice refreshing glass of lemonade on a Saturday morning in the spring? You have so many options out there and yet all of these remain comfortably neutral.

Happy Painting!