Hallway

The original plan had been to paint the living room, dining room and hallway the same color, just different shades of that color. The dining room would be the darkest color as its the brightest room. The living room would be a little lighter and the hallway lighter than the living room. I picked the second card from the left at the bottom, I think. It's been a long time since those paint colors! 

 

You already know that I painted the dining room with the darker color and cried as I hated it. So, the idea to paint the three areas the same color, just different shades was thrown out the window. Having already wasted a gallon of paint, I thought I'd try and save a few bucks and use one of the leftover paints from the previous owners. I forgot to take a before picture, but you can see in the picture below that the hallway used to be dark. (Top is the primer, bottom the original paint color and middle is where I had painted a sample color.) 

 

The very first gathering of Cookbook Club we all stood in the hallway and tried to guess what color the paint was and how many colors they'd used! The shadows and turns in the hallway made it look several different colors, thought it was just one. The area needed a lighter color paint and I had two options leftover from the previous owners. The first was Dove Gray (BM). It was white, not gray at all. The space is dark enough it could handle a white, so I gave it a go and... Yep, hated it! It was shockingly bright and oh so white! I am not a big fan of white walls. Apparently I'm destined to paint every space in my house twice before finding the right shade. So, I went with the second leftover option; Bay Waves.  Here is a picture with Dove Gray in the middle and Bay Waves on the edges. 

 

I loved grays before I started painting and have since decided they're not a good pick for this house. Even so, it's just the hallway and not that big of a space AND I didn't want the stress of trying to find the right color, so Bay Waves it is!  Except that it isn't. Well, it is temporarily. Probably till fall. Why? Because it's semi-gloss and I think, though it looks nothing like it, that Bay Waves might have been the color they used in the bathroom! The shine is horrible, even more so in pictures, so I don't have a finished picture to share. I'm new to all this and hadn't thought to check what type of finish the paint was. So, this fall, hopefully, I'll be painting the hallway again, something other than white and gray and definitely not semi-gloss!