Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Feeling blue

Today's fun adventure is picking out paint for the basement. I haaaate picking out paint. It's pretty much my least favorite thing to do in the world. Well, dental surgery. I kind of hated that more.

I have come to the conclusion that I was not born with the gene that every other woman in the world has that allows them to accessorize things. I can't do it. I can't match necklaces to outfits and I can't pick out paint colors that go together and don't look like crap. I mean, eventually I get there somehow. My house actually has some really pretty paint colors in it, but it took serious work and consultations with every single person I know to get it done.

So today I spent the morning at Lowes buying a million of those little sample jars. Those are the greatest thing ever. It's like $4 or something and they give you enough paint to go home and swatch it on the wall and see how it looks. It's awesome for people like me who can't envision a room by just looking at a paint swatch on paper.

I want to paint the new TV room blue. Not the whole basement, just that room. With the brown leather sectional that is going in there I think a soft blueish grey would be really pretty. Not so blue that it looks like a little boys bedroom or makes you walk in the room and go "whoah! Blue paint!" and not so grey that it looks like cement. Something soft and Pottery Barn-ish. You know what color I'm talking about, right?  Well I can't find it!!

When we were at the carpet store picking out vinyl for the bathroom last week the lady who works there helped me pick out some colors. She picked out a beautiful blue and soft brown for the recessed accent wall. I loved the swatches, they were really pretty.

So this morning I went to Lowes and bought a sample of those along with sample of a few others that were kind of similar that I wanted to try. I painted each color on big squares of cardboard and held them up.

It turns out we must have the weirdest lighting ever in that basement because it totally turned everything a completely different color. The pretty blue grey the carpet lady picked looked great on the cardboard, it looked great on the way down the stairs, it looked great when I walked into the basement, I held it up on the wall...PURPLE. Ugh.

The others weren't much better. Everything is too light, too dark, too grey, too blue...too wrong. Which means that I think I have to start over and go back to Lowes for more samples and try again.

Fortunately I'm not having as much trouble with the paint for the rest of the basement. The stairs and the hallway are going to be the same color that our upstairs hallways are. It's just a taupe-y tannish sandy color. Pretty but simple. I like it upstairs, it will be fine downstairs. The bathroom is going to be some sort of grey but I found a few good greys and it's a small bathroom that we don't use much so I'm not stressing too much over it.

It's just that darn TV room. We're putting so much money and work into it that I want it to be perfect. I don't want to walk in there and hate the paint every time I see it.

So I'll keep looking. The right color is out there. The Lowes guy might have to mix 50 sample jars before I find it, but I'll keep looking.

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