Choosing Paint Colors part I

As I mentioned before, I am picky particular about the colors in our home.  (Doesn't the word particular make it sound better?)  For months now, I've been looking at paint colors online, saving pictures of them, and envisioning those colors on the walls in our new home.  I continually gravitate toward cool color schemes like these that I pinned on Pinterest.

I love the dark gray and the green! via

Loving the blues.  (original link broken)

Hmmm...would that orange color be too much? via

I'm not in love with the first two blues, but the green and orange are nice.  via

It goes without saying that at least one (if not many more) rooms in our house will be blue.  I love the color blue.  I think it is calming and serene.  Perfect for bedrooms and bathrooms, but I also like it in other rooms.  Our dining room in our first house was an amazing medium shade of blue that we loved (see below) despite the fact that the color supposedly suppresses your appetite.

We also had a light shade of blue in our kitchen and I can personally say I never felt any appetite suppression in either room.  :)

In fact, we loved the color of our old dining room so much that there was no doubt in our minds what color our new dining room would be.

Ok.  Dining room = medium to dark blue.  Check.

After some contemplation and a few paint samples, we chose Valspar's Evening Eclipse 4007-3C.  It's a nice silvery blue.  Our new dining room doesn't get as much natural light as our old one so we decided to go lighter with the paint this time.

covering up that moss green

of course, the trim will one day be white - not looking forward to that job

I also knew that I wanted the master bedroom to be a darker color than our first master.  This was because:

1. I wanted the cream colored headboard that my mother and I made last year to pop against the wall color (it was a labor of money-saving-love that we are pretty proud of)
2. I wanted our white nightstands to stand out
3. I think a dark bedroom is a bit more romantic
4. I was inspired by these photos

http://www.sfgirlbybay.com/2011/04/13/gravel-gray/

http://www.lifeingraceblog.com/2012/07/the-sultry-master/

In the first photo, the accent wall is actually Gravel Gray by Benjamin Moore.  The second one features Graphite by Ben Moore on all the walls.  I love how dramatic the colors are.  After some contemplation, I decided a dark color on all the walls might be a bit much for us.  We have a lot of trees on our lot and I was concerned about how much natural light the bedroom would get.  I didn't want to feel like I was in a cave all the time - maybe at night, but not during the day.

So...master bedroom = very dark blue or dark gray accent wall with remaining walls white or very light gray.  Check.

The master bedroom was the first painting project that we tackled after moving in.  The first step was choosing the accent wall color.  We settled on Hale Navy by Benjamin Moore (color matched to Valspar Ultra No-VOC Paint and Primer in One in eggshell).

Hale Navy by Ben Moore (HC-154)

Next, we had to choose a color for the remaining walls.  I don't know if you've ever tried to choose a white or light gray, but there are about a MILLION choices and they all look super similar at first.  It's all about undertones (something that I understand the concept of, but can't always figure out just by looking at a color on a paint card).

Here is our sample line-up.  (We are firm believers in spending the money on samples before making a final decision.  We painted the kitchen in our last house 3 times in the 15 months that we lived there.  Seth was NOT happy.  So he is fine with spending the money on samples, too.)  We didn't want anything too dark (remember, we were trying to replicate the look of the inspiration picture above) so the first and third options were out.  We narrowed it down to the three options below.  

Then I decided the top one was too blue.  So, down to two.  Amos was playing on the bed while we agonized over the decision.  Oh, to have his life.

We eventually settled on Valspar's Anthem White (the lower sample).  It actually looks really light gray on the walls.  Here is the finished transformation.

The cream molding may not be around for too long.  I think a nice crisp white is usually the way to go with all molding, but we'll see.

See how nice the white nightstands look against that navy blue accent wall?  I'm lovin' it! (Not in that annoying McDonald's commercial way though.)

What do you think?  Does anyone have a go-to, favorite paint color that seems to pop up in every house you've lived in?

The Befores

I have lots of ideas for the new house.  They include painting the walls in every single room (apparently I am picky about color because we just did this 16 months ago in our first house) and many other more exciting projects and crafts.  A lot of these ideas were inspired by Pinterest.  I'm not really sure how I lived without that website. ;)  Some days Seth wishes that Pinterest would just disappear.  Although, he did admit that we have eaten some pretty tasty food because of recipes I've found on it.  Lets just say it is probably a very good thing that it wasn't around when we got married.

Before we start in on our painting, projects, furniture arranging, art hanging, etc, I thought I would show you the before pics of the house that I snapped the day we moved in.  Please excuse any boxes or furniture in the pics - the movers were waiting for us to get to the house after closing and wasted no time starting to unload the truck.

Oh, first, here is a schematic of the house so that you can get a better idea of the layout.  As you can see, we decided to use some rooms differently to better suit our needs.  At this point in life, we definitely do not need a formal living room AND a den.  So, we decided to use the formal living room as a large dining room and use the smaller dining room as an office.  This frees up both guest bedrooms for us to use when all of our friends and family come to visit (hint, hint).

*Note:  This is definitely not to scale.  The master bedroom is actually larger than the guest bedrooms in person although it does not appear that way above.

front door/porch before - we do have a front door,
it was open for the movers

entry hallway before

Somehow I missed the dining room before shot on moving day so here is one in it's current condition.  Sorry for all of the stuff and the random square of white paint!

dining room before - yes, the trim is painted green as well

dining room before

office before - more green

kitchen before

kitchen before - i guess the fridge is supposed 

to blend in with the cream colored cabinets???

kitchen eat-in area before - yes, the kitchen and living room

have wood paneling  :(

 living room before - I generally love the color blue, but not this shade of it

living room fireplace before

living room before - one day we will have a nice modern cat tree

that blends in better with our decor

 guest bedroom 1 before

guest bedroom 1 before

guest bedroom 2 before

 guest bath before - look at that peach toilet!

guest bathroom - are you loving the peach floral wallpaper?

 master bedroom before

master bedroom before

 master bathroom before - the tile is mauvish brown (at least that's what i'm calling it)

close up of master bath vanity before

We definitely have our work cut out for us.  We are new to major DIY projects but I think gutting a couple of bathrooms might be the place to start.  The kitchen scares and overwhelms me though.  Any volunteers to come and help us out???

Finding A House

When Seth and I decided to accept his job offer and make the move back to Tennessee, I immediately started searching online for our next house.  I spent hours upon hours clicking through pictures.  Seth spent hours upon hours listening to my daily house hunt updates.  We were leaving a charming 1910 bungalow that we both loved inside and out.  We are not new construction kind of people so we were hoping to find another old home with loads of charm.  However, after researching Jackson a bit, we found a neighborhood we wanted to focus on (location, location, location) and it did not include homes built before 1950.  Bummer.

I kept a running house list and would check the MLS daily for new additions.  My Our requirements were pretty simple:

1. 3+ bedrooms
2. 2+ bathrooms
3. 1200+ square feet       
4. NO cigarette smoke   AND...
5. at least 1 mature tree in the yard

The last one may seem strange to you, but it was very important to me.  It's not like you can move in, plant a tree, and get an instantaneous mature, shaded lot.  At least, I don't know how to achieve that.  And I like a little shade.  Amos prefers to sun bathe, but I can only stand it for so long.  

We narrowed it down via the online descriptions and pictures and scheduled some showings with our realtor.  There was one house that stuck out in our minds.  We pretty much fell in love with it via our computer screen.  Every few days I checked to make sure it was still on the market as we waited for our trip to Jackson.

We had one weekend to house hunt.  ONE.  If we did not find a house that weekend we had no hope of closing in time to move into it when we arrived in Tennessee.  And I did NOT want to move into a rental just to move again when we found a house to purchase.  My sanity would have been compromised (I had already moved 9 times in the previous 10 years).  We had seven houses to see the first day we arrived in Jackson.  The first four or so we breezed in and out of knowing that they weren't for us. There were one or two that were possible contenders but still just didn't feel like home.  Our "online dream house" was the sixth house we saw that day.  I prayed and prayed that I wouldn't smell cigarette smoke when our realtor opened the door.  And, thankfully, I did not!  We actually spent very little time walking through the house, because Seth and I both knew it was "the one" after a quick look.  We made an offer that night and it was accepted the next day.

Whew.  We had done it.  In 24 hours no less.  If I remember correctly, I was already sketching out furniture layouts at the hotel that very night.