Dark the walls with bahs of humbug: Take my husband 2

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So Mr. B is like all nesty lately and he keeps springing home improvement projects on me expecting me to like all snap judge and I'm like all "Wait! Slow down you maniac!"

We just put new floors in and they look grand. Double grand really. Lovely.

Having new floors put in 70% of your house means that your house is wrecked. Big time. Since we returned home all I have done is clean and I have more cleaning to do. And I don't have any doors on and I don't have any baseboards and everything is pretty much a disaster.

This morning's directive: Paint. Immediately. Yesterday.

Those of you who have read along with me over the years know that wall paint is my passion. I live to paint walls. Sometimes I'll paint six or seven coats of paint over paint over paint to get the color and texture I want since you can't go in a paint store and say "I want something scratchy and random and the colors (yes, colorS) of toast."

I really like the colors in my house now. I should - I drooled over enough paint samples and savored the delicious task of applying the paint. For a fraction of a second I thought I'd pick up a few gallons and spruce up the current job until I realized that I would be robbing myself of painting joy.

I had heard about a newish paint brand called Devine so I looked it up online and fell in love. It looks like I could cover my dark colored walls with a lighter color using this brand without having to bother with boring primer, etc. The colors are delicious. The wheels started turning and my fingers got itchy and I decided that, you know, just maybe it wouldn't hurt to look. Maybe try a few samples on my walls. Play.

So I bustled Mo off to school, ran home, grabbed the car and dashed off to the paint store.

THE GOD FORSAKEN PLACE IS CLOSED FOR INVENTORY TODAY.

<sob>

So now I have a day to dwell.

This is where you come in.....

Last time I chose dark colors for my walls because we had dark trim and I don't like a lot of contrast because it just seems really visually confusing to me and negates the serenity I seek with color.

This time I get new trim too though.

Mr. B prefers lighter colors because he thinks it (1) Makes the house look bigger and (2) The lighter colors make everything jollier (or something).

So:

1. Pretend you me
2. You have an open floor plan and need to paint: living room, dining room, kitchen cabinets and trim. It all needs to blend together.
3. Dark trim/cabinets with lighter walls?
4. Light trim/cabinets with darker walls?

Here's a link to Devine paint: http://www.devinecolor.com/paintt/colorpalette.shtml

The red box has all of the color palettes available. I'm partial to greens and browns.

Pick three colors from any palette and tell me where you would use them.

Ready? Set? Design!

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Oh my.

I went through this a bit ago and kind of ground to a halt. I have a very similar thing going on in that everything has to blend together or at least not clash horribly. I recently came to the bright idea of having the central room (dining room) be a light neutral and the rest (kitchen, living room, family room) be colors -- of some sort. I still haven't really gotten past that though.

This is definitely my weak spot. I've painted ONCE -- my room at the housing co-op in Madison. I got it the exact shade of sunny-but-not-overpowering yellow that I wanted. It was perfect.

Faced with the whole blending thing I get overwhelmed fast.

I tend to like saturated colors but save them for bright rooms. Right now my living room is the darkest room in the house and also has dark walls, that's gonna change.

Which is all to say, I'm here to watch and learn more than contribute. That site looks great!

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Most of my furniture is really neutral - wood and leather - brown and black - splashes of red - they'll work with anything.

My biggest problem will be the built in bookshelf thingy. It is a really odd color made from several colors. I have this cool painting that has this color of yellowy brown that I wanted to match and I did a good job of building the color using several glazes. I think it wll match with any neutral green though so I should be okay.

Whatever green goes in there (dining room) will also have to run into the kitchen and hallway. The living room, though open to the dining room can be just about anything that will go with a neutral green.

It is hard to blend it all together! I'm glad to know that I'm not the only one who thinks so.

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Can you get Dulux paint out in the Colonies?

http://www.dulux.co.uk/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/OurRangeView?storeId=10752&catalogId=10051&langId=-1

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I so love that site!

The colors are absolutely beautiful.

I said my living room is the darkest, I meant my dining room.

OK here's what I'm thinking for my rooms, maybe useful or maybe not (I think you go more subtle and sophisticated).

Devine fir for kitchen walls. (Close match to the original 1920's green I've been looking for.) Devine blade for cabinets and trim (more contrast than you like, I know).

Devine fescue for dining room, blade for trim. (Or maybe butter, dunno.)

Then maybe a couple from Valley vineyards for family and living rooms. Ooh, this is so hard! <shifts back into watch and learn mode>

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sozobe wrote:

I so love that site!

The colors are absolutely beautiful.......

I did doubt whether you'd get Dulux out there, but just thought that the Dulux site might give Boom some ideas.
I found it not long ago, and it saves so much time trawling round the paint shops, looking at little swatches and trying to imagine what a room would look like in that colour.

Knowing Boomer, she could match any of those colours by mixing stuff up anyway.

She's pretty weird, but quite talented, I find.

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i liked moss and olive - dusty greens. i like those with a dark trim.... and they go well with warm browns or somesuch... those would be my choices i think.

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I actually meant the Devine site <ducks> but then after that I've been exploring the Dulux site and it's very cool, too. I did the "get colour recommendations for the room you're decorating" thing though and it didn't work. :-? (When I click "submit," I just get a blank screen even after waiting forever.) Yank discrimination!

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I'm blushing now. I thought I was a superstar for a brief minute.

Can't you get it to work?

I'll have a word with Blair in the morning.

Carry on......

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I've not heard of Dulux paint and I have a real fetish for paint so I'm thinking it is not readily available here. They do have some wonderful colors though!

The paint a room option didn't work for me either! I'm expecting Lord E to have that able to go for us right quick though.

I like all the color combinations you picked soz. It's crazy making, isn't it?

I like the moss a lot too, dagmarka. Right now my walls are just about the color above it - hosta.

I'm kind of veering towards darker trim - I've grown to like that look but I confess I'm being seduced towards lighter trim. I think it is because I'm considering lighter for my cabinets and thought I would do the trim in whatever cabinet color I chose. Now I'm not so sure.

Maybe I need four colors......

Seeing the lighter colors everyone is picking makes me rethink my darkness deal. I keep being drawn to the "coffee blends" palatte.

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Boomer, I found a Devine store about 15 minutes away and I'm thinking of going right now. I want some of those spray-painted sheets to hold up and stuff. We were just talking about painting the other night, we haven't done anything and we're feeling like we want to really take ownership of this house, change some stuff, make it OURS.

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I wanna go!

I can't believe the store is closed today

I'm really curious as to what the cost per gallon is. I know it is kind of pricy in comparison but one thing I know for sure - premium paints are worth every penny.

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*sigh* The entire interior of my house is wood. Not just the trim or like cheap paneling but real barnboard. Every square inch with the exception of the bathroom and the ceilings/floors. I soooo want to paint but... 100 year old bare wood? Do I dare?

Can I come paint at your place Boomer? I'd love to see color again.

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Yay!

Yes. Come paint! Painting walls is the ultimate zen experience.

I don't think I'd dare paint your walls and that is something that I never ever thought I would say to anyone.

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I should be forced to dwell more often!

I decided to clean up my desk and I found a $100 bill and an old "POWs never have a nice day" button that must date back to the 70s.

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Wow!

OK, just got back, that was SO fun!!! I love love love color.

What I settled on was to the conservative side of the spectrum -- I'd actually like to shake things up a bit more, be a bit more bold. But what I have (the sheets, which are $2.50 each, hmph):

Fir
Whip (EXACT match for existing counters, I'm so happy)

That'd be for kitchen walls (fir) + and trim and cabinets (whip).

The Blade color turned out to be much greener than I expected, but still a very light, nice, warm color -- thinking of that for dining room, especially since there is a lot of visual flow from kitchen to dining room.

Then brought back Clay for the family room. It's not that bright but I know this stuff tends to bounce off of itself and intensify. It works great with the wood in that room and is a nice warm homey kind of color.

Couldn't figure out anything for the living room. Might go with a more intense color like Paprika.

$40/ gallon. That's a bit pricey, but we don't have that much to actually cover in the kitchen for example, I think a gallon of each color would probably do it, and $80 isn't THAT much more eek than $50 ($25/gallon seems to be more standard).

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I figured it was going to cost somewhere in that neighborhood because it really is supposed to be top quality. I'm guessing that I'll need about 5 or 6 gallons, at least, since I have to go over dark paint. Still, I don't know where you can make such a big difference in a house with so little money.

I was wondering how the colors reproduced on the computer - sounds like they might be a little off. Since you've seen them in person -- are the colors really nice? Does the paint look like it is worth the price? What did the salespeople have to say about it?

That is so cool that you found an exact match for your original paint!

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The match is to the counters (which will stay unpainted), but it's a lot like the (now grungy) paint that's in there, too. It's actually a smidge lighter than the counters, but very much the same family. (Right now the whole kitchen is that color; I'd want to freshen up cabinets and trim and then paint the walls the green. Or maybe blue. Green doesn't go with our current color scheme in there and I like the current color scheme and made curtains and everything... bluhbluhbluh...)

Anyway, in person, the colors are really nice!! The salesperson didn't say much and I didn't ask him much. My unscientific impression (i.e. not backed up by anything in particular) is that he thought they were very good quality.

My eye kept being drawn to the really intense colors, not sure where I'd actually put them though.

I have so little experience with this stuff that I can't do much of a comparison in terms of worth the price. I liked it a lot. I got some free color swatches too from other companies (it was a general paint store that carried Devine, not just Devine) but those colors seemed kinda simplistic, too boring. So I guess by that measure, yeah. I also went into overload quickly though with those other ones -- if you have a specific color in mind, that's fine, but just browsing gets *gack*. None of the greens I saw were as nice as the Devine Fir.

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Need to paint, so bookmarking.

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I let sozlet go crazy at the Sherwin-Williams site, this is what she came up with:

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d130/sozobe/diningroom1-330.jpg

Kinda Mexican.

That site is useful, you have to approximate (or plan on painting with their colors) but it lets you see what three rooms at a time would look like:

http://www.sherwin.com/do_it_yourself/paint_colors/

(Click "launch color visualizer.")

My current idea is something like this:

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d130/sozobe/diningroomrealcolors.jpg

Eh, that seems boring. The real Devine colors are much nicer.

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Dark the walls with bahs of humbug: Take my husband 2

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