So, I cried.

I hated the wall color of the dining room I had just spent 6 days painting. Hated it. I loved the color on the paint card and the paint that was in the can, but it dried and looked far differently on my walls than I had expected. I had painted test sample patches, four different colors, but still, this wasn't the color I was expecting. Did I mention that I hated the color I had painted? It looked blue to me. Like if you were going to decorate with seashells and light houses blue. That is not my thing. It reminded me of my brothers old room, which I got after he'd moved out, but hadn't every painted, very light blue. The follow pictures were taken before 7 am on Friday and aren't the best. 

 

 

I'd already removed all the tape and plastic thinking maybe I would get used to it or I could live with it till fall. 

 

 

But no, it looked horrible with my furniture (buffet shown missing it's drawer, it's easier to move it without the draw in), honey oak floors and the wood trim. The wood trim looked bad against this paint. Washed out and dingy. 

I cried not because I knew without a doubt I'd be painting it over again, no I wanted to paint it again. I hated it that much. I cried rather because I was so sure this was the color I wanted and if I messed up this much, how was I ever going to find the right color? 

So, these were the colors that made the first cut. The burgundy wall they're hanging on, that's the color of the dining room before I painted.  I eventually picked the three color card that's on the bottom row, fourth from the left. The one to the left of the blue card. I painted the dining room the darkest color and had planned on the lighter color for the living room and the lightest color for the hallway. I don't see any of those three colors as blue, but blue gray it was on my walls. 

 

My friend Jenna (and her sweet mom) came over to point me in the right direction for attempt number two. She said if I wanted the trim to appear rich, I'd have to pick a paint with a yellow or brown undertone. I thought about sage, but Jenna said sage has a blue undertone. I am definitely not going with anything blue. 

So, we narrowed it down from this 

 

(He's so helpful.) To this 

Colors are a little off in these pictures. These weren't colors I'd originally considered, but I'm warming to them. Test swatches were painted of three of the colors on a cool and gray weekend. I swung from loving one of the colors to hating them all. It's so surprising how much different the paint looks on my walls than on a card.