House to Home - Picking Paing Colors

When we moved into our house a little over two years ago, we were super excited that the house was a blank slate. Looking back, it was too much of a blank slate. I had an idea of the look I was going for, but once we got into the process, it was so much harder than I realized.

As soon as we signed the contract on our house, I was on Pinterest trying to figure out what I wanted the house to look like. Then E came along and my days of lazily looking at decor were long gone. That first year was a blur and we didn't do anything with the house. It kind of looked like college kids had moved in and were playing house.

This summer we knew we had to get serious about getting the house together. We found a painter and then it was time to pick colors. No problem right....not so much.

I wanted the main neutral color for the house to be grey. I am a big fan of the style they use over at Young House Love and wanted to bring some of that into our house. After looking, I will tell you that there are way more than 50 shades of grey and finding the right one is really hard.

So many colors

Our painter used Sherwin-Williams paint, so I was trying to find a SW grey. We started with 5 and within seconds of putting them on the wall, I knew that none of them was the one. After some doing some digging because of webite issues, I got my hands on the grey I had originally seen...Benjamin Moore Moonshine. This color is crazy amazing because of how much it changes in the light. Walking out of the store, there was no way this color was going to work, but once I got a sample and got it on our wall, it was perfect.

Samples

More samples

The rest of the house took a little less work. It only took 3 samples to find the right blue for the kitchen. I would call that a win after the 7 it took to find the grey. After a brief plan to paint the master bedroom purple (which I had a bit of a nervous breakdown about), we ended up with a soothing aqua. The spare bath is a deep blue, the office a pretty grey/green/blue and a grey/brown for our bathroom. I have to say that I love them all, which I never thought I would say.

The prefect grey

Grey with some blue accent

It is amazing the difference a little paint can make. It is also nice to be able to get crayon off the wall without taking all the paint along with it. Go for not builder grade white paint. After all this, here are my tips for picking the perfect paint color.

• Give yourself time. The process took way longer than I thought it would.
• Get samples. Spend the $7 each to make sure you have the right color. (If anyone needs paint samples, I have several boxes in the garage.)
• Go with your gut. The grey color I first saw is the one that ended up being perfect. I would have saved myself several paint samples if I had tracked it down from the beginning. 

The house is back together and now it is time to get some things on the walls. Back to Pinterest.