Thursday, September 19, 2013

Let There Be Color

Mmmm, but not too much color. We painted the walls grey, but that's no surpise if you read my Kitchen Planning post. I'm kind of obsessed with gray. (It was the color I insisted Tony and his best man wear at our wedding... Anyway, back to the paint.) I definitely wanted a neutral color in the main areas of the house and thought grey was perfect. I saw so many pictures of gray walls with wood floors too so I was hooked. I mean aren't these rooms so pretty?!


I’m not new to gray walls though. In our previous house our bedroom was painted gray- Behr’s Porpoise to be exact. I never got tired of that color. In fact I was convinced it made me sleep better at night. I could totally be imagining that, but I’ll believe whatever gives me a good night’s sleep! Again, because it was a “modern” neutral color I was obsessed with it. By “modern” I mean not the usual beige. I wasn’t very detailed with our décor then but anything we did have in our room always felt like it belonged there with that paint color. The gray walls never made anything seem wrong. It all just worked.

As soon as the walls we’re up in both our kitchen and living room Tony and I stopped by our local paint store Aboff’s for a Benjamin Moore color. Our plan was to make the house flow so we were careful in picking our living room/kitchen color. I wanted it to be gray, lighter and easier to match up other colors in the other rooms (which would most likely have more “personality”). I pulled out a million swatches of gray paints and lined them all up. We started narrowing it down and Tony picked the best option ever- Benjamin Moore’s San Antonio Gray. I didn’t even realize how perfect it was until we started painting the walls.



The floors weren't installed yet at this point so the concrete slab doesn't help justify the beauty of the color. The slab is sort of washing the color out in this picture. However, painting the walls from primed white walls to any color at all sent my heart fluttering. Life! Our house is starting to have its own life! To finally see some color on the walls after months of renovating was so thrilling! It was becoming easier for me to imagine these rooms put together.

There are so many gray color paints out there that it can definitely send your head spinning. Don’t be alarmed. I must say that it’s pretty hard to mess up gray. Just remember these things that I picked up when we were searching for the right color. You can narrow down grey paint colors in these three groups:
  • True Gray - these shades of gray often have no undertone to soften or cool it. Think of it this way; only black and white were mixed to make this color. If it looks like another color may have been mixed in then it’s not a true gray.
  • Warm Grays - these shades are softer and “cozier”. Imagine gray with a splash of taupe in it. It’s a little more muddier and earthy.
  • Cool Gray - these shades might have blue or purple undertone. If you look at it long enough you’ll notice it might resemble a muted blue color, or a very shaded purple.
You can check out some of these blogs for some great posts with more details about gray paint:
Here's one more picture of the walls. It's not a great picture so I aplogize. This was taken a little later in the eveing when the sun was going down, but you the way the color reads in this picture is more true to the actual color. Unfortunately I didn't get picture of the kitchen painted before the cabinets were hung. There wasn't too much color in the kitchen anyway since we left most of  wall unpainted since we knew the cabinets would cover it up anyway. 


(P.S. Its been about 4 months since we've painted and live with San Antonio Gray... and I still LOVE it! This is definitely going into the books as a can't-go-wrong paint choice.)

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