I've Got the Blues

Whew.  The paint decisions continue.  For those of you that know me, I am not always the best decision-maker.  The people in the paint department at Lowe's have found that out pretty quickly.  They are about tired of mixing up samples for me.  They see me coming from a mile away and fight with each other about who will have to mix paint for the crazy lady who can't actually commit to buying a full gallon.  Don't worry - the commitment issue seems to be restricted to paint colors.

My biggest challenge has been the decrease in natural light in this house versus our old house.  :(  I'm trying not to be too sad about it.  I mean, I LOVE trees in the yard (as I believe I've mentioned before and will probably mention again).  I have a tree fetish (that is, until Fall rolls around).  I imagine a tree-filled lot and beams of sunshine streaming in through every window don't always go hand in hand.  "You can't al-ways get what you wa-ah-ahnt" as my mother and Mick Jagger would say sing.

The problem comes when I see a color on a paint card, in a photo of a room online, etc and get it firmly planted in my mind that that specific color would be perfect in our fill-in-the-blank room.  Unfortunately, there are so many factors that influence how that color will actually read in your space.  I  knew that already, but I also found out just how true it is.  I thought we were doing the right thing - buying samples, leaving them up for days, and looking at them throughout the day in all different kinds of light.  But after slaving away last weekend (I mean, I was sweating and not looking remotely attractive with my roller in hand) to paint our large formal living room turned dining room, I decided that I just couldn't live with the color that we picked.  It seemed like it was going to be alright as we were rolling it on but after it dried I wasn't so sure about it.  Let me refresh your memory.

It actually looks better in this photo than in person.  In person, it appears almost a bit purple.  The main problem is that the color doesn't match the amazing rug that I fell in love with and recently purchased from West Elm (at 30% off by the way!!!).

A side note about West Elm - if you can, definitely hold out for their rotating 20% off sales.  I also applied a 10% off coupon to the rug purchase and Seth and I scored a ton of new lighting for our new pad during the 20% off lighting sale a couple months ago.

The Evening Eclipse looked like it would match fine when we held the paint card next to the rug (or we wouldn't have chosen it).  It even seemed ok when we painted our test square on the wall.  I guess our lighting or our eyes or something deceived us.  Because the blues in the rug are much more gray.  So...I broke the news to Seth and we have been hunting down a better color ever since.  I'll let you know when we find "the one".