The Plunge

We've been in our own house now for 7 months. It's about time we took the painting plunge and really made it ours. I don't know why painting is so scary to me. It doesn't have to be permanent. I guess that's what happens after living with white walls for 10 years. Any decorating sense we might have had has been white-washed. We don't know what colors "go" together. We don't know what would look "good". So it's scary to me. Plus, who wants to waste money on a quart or gallon of paint you don't use. Not me.

Well, we tried a couple of colors in our kitchen...three actually, before we found one we liked. It was a cheery shade of yellow. The reason for getting it is because the kitchen and family room were very cave-like when we moved into the house in December. But that's also because the backyard was a jungle and that's changed. There's a lot of light that pours through those windows now, so I'm thinking a yellow might be too much. So then we thought we would just paint the kitchen in the yellow and do a different color in the adjoining family room. But there isn't a definitive cut off line to distinguish the kitchen wall from the family room, so we nixxed that idea. Plus, the yellow we had chosen, though it is a nice shade of yellow, doesn't go with the red in the dining room and to me, these colors need to flow. They need to be in the same hue family. The yellow was much too pale. But we did find a color we believe will work. We HOPE it will look good anyway. We're excited for it. But you'll have to wait to see that. Maybe we can use the yellow paint in Karcyn and Calvin's room.

Our first painting plunge was the dining room and it took place this past weekend. For those who have seen the dining room or remember it from pictures, the previous owners painted it a bright red beneath the chair rail and left it white on top. I was shocked to discover I actually liked the red in the dining room. Though I never would have picked it myself, we decided to keep it but put a fresh coat on and add a color above it.

We had some extra red paint in the shed, but couldn't tell where it came from or the name of it, so we took it to Home Depot and they color matched a gallon of it for us. Woooo-doggy! That paint is bright and we had our doubts. Serious doubts. It went on as pink!!

But to my great relief, that paint does indeed dry darker. It looked just like the shade of red that was originally painted on. So here is our painted dining room, Hough-style. The top color looks kind of pink to me in these pictures below, but I assure you it is not. It's called "sands of time" and is beige in color.

The living room color will be changing, but it will probably be the last room we do since it involves moving bookshelves and a back-breaking upright grand piano.