Bringing Sexy Back
The last couple weeks we’ve had paint on the brain. And this weekend we finally got paint on the walls…and our hands, clothes, hair, etc.
We had 3 reasons for the painting extravaganza:
- Flow: All the widened doorways make the house feel more open and connected, but our old schizophenic paint scheme (which included celedon, turquoise, seafoam, butter yellow, and about three shades of brown) was fighting it.
- Trend: We’ve seen soothing neutral colors all over design magazines and model homes, so it felt like it was time to ditch the turquoise for a more sophisticated palette.
- Necessity: All this demo left a lot of things “putty” and “drywall” colored, so almost every room was calling for touch ups anyway.
So, without further ado – here’s our “new-ish” color scheme:
These are all “digital swatches” from Glidden so the color’s only as accurate as your computer monitor.
I say “new-ish” because it’s really just a trimmed-down version of our existing color scheme. Wishes and Water Chestnut are already in our den, and Gentle Tide is already in our master bedroom (the first room we ever painted in our house- and our favorite.) Now they’re just being used in other rooms to pull our whole one-story brick ranch together…
Stay tuned for pictures of all the newly painted rooms. We figured we’d snap those after the new floor is in today. ‘Til then, enjoy a pic of us relaxing for a change at a UVA football game this weekend. Go Hoos!
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I have a very similar home to yours (1950′s brick ranch in Richmond) and we did the same thing, went a little crazy with paint colors when we first moved in last summer. I want to do a more sophisticated scheme but I’m a little scared b/c I don’t know how many layers of paint are underneath. Should we try to strip some layers down? Or just say, one more coat shouldn’t hurt?
Hey Katie,
Fear not! You’ll have a lot more success adding a few more coats of new color than trying to strip old paint (that’s a hugely messy project that will probably result in more imperfections than you bargained for. Just rolling another coat or two right over your walls is all it takes for a totally new look. Hope it helps!
xo,
Sherry
Sherry & John –
I am currently addicted to your site and I feel like we have had so many of the same experiences (including ripping up nasty 70s linoleum near the front door covering wonderful hardwood!). I started reading old posts this morning (slow day at the office). A good tip I once heard from a decorator friend is that all of the colors in your house should relate to eachother so if you put them all of the chips down on the table, any of them go with any other. We have tried ot follow that rule in our huse – particularly for connecting rooms. The exception – the pink my daughter insisted on for her room! At least pink looks good with the creamy yellow in the hallway, AND I was able push her towards peach/pink as opposed to her first choice of BRIGHT bubblegum!
Great job on the house!