Yesterday, Nick & I went to Home Depot to get some paint swatches. We're hopefully going to start our "living room project" and get going on getting our downstairs repainted and get wood floors. Although, I think concrete floors would be pretty cool too.. Can you guess what color I want to paint our walls? Now the only question is: what yellow should I choose?
I have actually have never had a painted wall in a place I've lived. Do you have any tips on choosing color? Would you paint yourself or hire a painter? We'll probably just hire someone, we have tall walls/ceilings and I wouldn't want to mess it up. I was also thinking of doing some kind of floral wallpaper, what do you think? I am kind of loving these stripes though. This gallery has some neat ideas, but I'm feeling overwhelmed. I am not an interior designer!
The thing about it is that I get bored/tired of spaces really easily so I am not sure if I'll get bored of one paint color and one wallpaper style that I commit to. Ahh, any tips/suggestions friends? :)
Oops, update! Totally forgot to mention that I'll be taking a little blog break next week. Will have some posts ready to go though so I won't be gone completely! Have a wonderful weekend dearest friends. xo.
just read Sibella Court's Etcetera, then you'll be inspired like me.
ReplyDeleteLet's see...painting advice. Well, I've done it myself a bunch with my parents (and I repainted my bedroom on a whim one weekend, in yellow). Go a shade lighter than you think you want, because it usually looks more saturated when you have it on a whole wall. Tester paint cans are great and you should definitely make use of them. If you hire someone, they may have a good opinion on the colors you use, in terms of how it'll look in your room.
ReplyDeleteWallpaper can look fun, but it is a HUGE pain to change most of the time (especially if you don't prime the wall correctly before hanging it). Doing a textured-look paint can create a lot of wallpaper-like effects and stenciling in a small area can get that dose of pattern in the room. In my parents' house, the kitchen/living area is done in a treatment that creates an variegated pinstripe sort of effect--it's really subtle but looks good.
Sorry for the novel there! It's not really decorating advice, just painting and papering, but that's about all I know!
My advice for chossing a paint color is to look at it in the different lights that will be shining on it - sunlight, incandescent light, fluorescent light, etc. The color can really change and what may look great in the daytime may look not so great at night when the lights are on. I never had painted walls either until we bought our home 2 years ago. We painted almost every room after agonizing over color selections. I'm happy to say we are still in love with every color we chose. Oh, and we painted ourselves. It's one thing you can totally do yourself and feel a great sense of accomplishment. We needed a ladder too with 11' ceilings but we just borrowed from a neighbor.
ReplyDeleteI love yellow! It is my favorite color, so good choice! I think wallpaper is a really fun idea. But if you are worried about getting tired of it you could do a stencil instead. That way if you were over it, you could just paint over it instead of trying to take down wallpaper.
ReplyDeleteI am all about hiring a painter. I think it is the best investment we made on the house. And go for bold colors...I don't necessarily mean bright, but don't be afraid. It is so much fun to get color and texture on the wall, once you start there is no turning back!
ReplyDeleteRemember that the paint is going to look a lot darker when you cover an entire wall with it, which can make a room appear smaller and more cluttered (though there are times when dark colors can work). You will be surprised at how dark even your lightest choice here will appear. Put the color swatches on different walls, observe them from different angles and in different lights. For me, choosing the color is the hardest part of painting. ;) good luck! You have good instinct, so I'm sure whatever you chose will be gorgeous.
ReplyDeleteIf you paint yourself, I HIGHLY recommend buying a Wagner Paint Mate or some other brand of paint stick that lets you suck paint up into a tube so you don't have to bend over all the time. It also makes painting ceilings that much easier!
ReplyDeleteI love the one you taped on the most top layer (if that makes sense?) with the brown polka dot tape! We have a yellow room too and it makes me feel cheerful whenever I'm in it! Happy weekend!
ReplyDeletexx Vivian @ http://diamondsandtulle.blogspot.com
It much easier to paint yourself then you think. I've been painting my rooms (and now house) since I was 13. The lesson I learned, if you are like me (and you said you are) and you get tired of the same old thing easily, then pick a very soft light shade. I've never kept a deep punch of color too long, however the softest aqua blue, and grey I have kept for years. If I lived closer, I would help you in a heartbeat :) Oh and yes to floral wallpaper!
ReplyDeleteThey look much darker on the walls...so go lighter than you intend to end up with. For real :)
ReplyDeleteI've painted lots of rooms in my day and I agree 100% with Auntie Bliss! Paint ALWAYS appears darker once its dried and covering the walls.. Also, its easier to repaint something to make it darker than to paint over something making it lighter, so err on the side of caution. On a lighter note, a yellow living room sounds lovely! Good luck!
ReplyDeleteI'm a former Home Depot paint department employee, and the most common mistake people make is choosing a color that is too saturated (too bright or too dark). The yellow that works for you may not even look yellow in the can, but it will once it dries on your wall. I STRONGLY suggest buying those little paint samples, about $3, that Home Depot sells to get a true idea of the color on your wall. Live with it for a few days to see it in every light. This can make a huge difference; in a dark room you may be able to get away with a much more saturated yellow, while in a light room that may be too powerful.
ReplyDeleteAs far as doing the paint yourself, I always told customers that painting is the one thing that everyone can do, and the one thing that you can really save money on, and not look like you did it! Prep is everything- you should spend 80% of your total time on taping alone. Save the money to buy a piece of furniture instead!
I painted an accent wall in my living room "Light Copper" and I love it! I think that might be your darkest swatch. Selecting the yellow was pretty easy but the grey to go with it took forever to get right! I painted big poster boards and tested them for a week. Then I painted a test wall. It took painting a test wall 3 times to get the right color!
ReplyDeleteI've noticed the more subtle, pale colors tend to be trickier because they change so much with the light. My house makes everything look blue so to get pale grey on my walls the paint almost looks khaki in the store and outside.
Test cans all the way! Also if you can't find just the right color in the swatches go to the counter and ask for "the big book" lol. It is ALL of the colors by whatever brand you may be looking at. I know glidden has one at homedepot - that is my color bible! They have every color muted to grey and as saturated as you can get.
ReplyDeleteSuggestion for a living room is go pale light yellow on all the walls but one - make that a feature wall in a deep yellow (maybe where the tv is up against or where artwok will be, a fireplace wall etc.
Floors are way harder to color match than walls so pick your wood first and then pick your yellow to match or contrast nicely. It can look garrish if they get miss matched in the undertones.
Good luck with your project! ~Brittany~
I'd never painted before we bought our house! I did a room in the basement--the mud room, so it didn't much matter--to practice. And then I decided: let the husband do the important rooms! Hahaha. I just helped with edging and what not.
ReplyDeleteI love the yellow though! My favorite trick was trying the samples under the different lights at Home Depot. Our room is the faintest shade of mint green; but in the morning light it looks almost bluish. That's why I'm glad we chose such a faint color so that any variations in different light are very subtle.
Youuuu could do stripes in two different shades of yellow. Or chevron stripes across the walls.
ReplyDeleteWe have a yellow wall in our living room, but the accent color came with our apartment. I love it, though! The last apartment we were in had a red accent wall. I want a house so I can paint my walls!
Though I'm pretty fickle so I feel like I would just repaint them every month when I get tired of the color...
I have a yellow kitchen! we opted to go with a soft yellow and I just added pops of brighter yellows via accessories. i didn't want the room to scream "yellow". we used a yellow from Benjamin Moore called summer harvest. our living room and family room is a grey/ blue and both rooms connect and I think the two colors compliment eachother quite well. good luck!
ReplyDeleteps. we also did wallpaper in our living room but just one wall as an accent wall. I love wallpaper!!
ReplyDeleteI had never had colored walls before our current house either. I choose pale blue walls for our living room and a dark green accent wall for our bedroom and regret them both. The colors I don't regret in our house are a very pale gray bathroom, very pale blue- almost white nursery, and a saturated gray guest room. My advice is to go with neutral walls or very pale colors. That way your decorating and art can pop against the walls instead of the walls popping against the room. If you want to have a neon accent color in the living room one year, it won't clash against the walls. Its totally personal preference but it's really easy to get sick of colored walls. Just make sure you are 100% sure before going for the yellow. I know you love mustard but you may find you like it better as a decorating accent than a wall. This is coming from a girl who regrets her colored walls daily.
ReplyDeleteOh, and I'm all about wallpaper! An accent wallpaper wall would be lovely- floral or stripes! I'm personally lusting after the Hygge & West black and gold wallpaper Joy posted about recently! I want to cover my bedrooms green accent wall with that wallpaper. :)
ReplyDeleteThat dark yellow you have is very similar to the color we are painting our living room! It's so bright and fun! I do agree though that the best way to paint high ceilings is to hire someone. Ours are too tall to reach. And wallpaper...OMG...there are so many wonderful options to choose from! Can't wait to see what you guys decided on :)
ReplyDeletewe just hired a painter to properly prep our walls as they were wallpapered awhile back and it's a challenge to remove wallpaper. we are going to paint our yellow kitchen a blue-gray and it was a challenge to find the right color. we looked at the samples during different times of the day and with different lighting. i hope we made a good choice because i always felt that yellow was one shade too dark :). have fun!
ReplyDeleteI'm going through the same thing too (but in my bedroom). My living room is two different shades of yellow and the wall going up the stairway is an orange. It was all painted when I bought my condo and is now in need of sprucing up. I have bought a few of the tester paint size cans at Lowe's and have been thankful that I did. I haven't found one that I totally like yet. Since the samples are water based I'm going to use them for my mixed media projects! It's a win in my book. The yellows make the living room look so inviting and cozy. Great color choice. If you are going to go for two shades of the same color then I'd get them from the same sample strip (you know, like they have four colors on the strip). A painter told me that they'll go good together because they have the same base formula. Good luck. Don't forget to post photos of the finished project!!
ReplyDeleteif you can, get a little sample of your paint choices, paint a swatch on your wall (maybe in two spots? one that gets a lot of light/one that doesn't) and see how it changes through out the day & whether you like it or not. make sure when you hire the painter that you are very specific about what needs to be done. do you just want them to paint the walls? the trim/baseboards too? is there patching that needs to be done? will they move your stuff/cover it or do you need to? some painters will go over this with you, some will just screw you over. if you choose to do it yourself umm... high ceilings suck. don't bother with taping, just keep a wet rag for drips and cover your floors. man i hate painting haha thank goodness my boyfriend was a union painter :) good luck and the darker yellow is so nice!
ReplyDeleteDude, I'm the queen of painting! I used to do it in college and high school for extra money. You could totally do it yourself :) I'm digging your color palette. Good luck, friend!
ReplyDeleteI have a yellow bedroom - it always looks like it's a sunny day when I wake up. I love it!
ReplyDeleteUnless your walls are in a seriously bad way, painting is really easy. Tape the edges, but if you do splodge somewhere you didn't mean to, just wipe it up with a damp rag. All you really need to do a good job is decent quality brushes. Go for it!
I love painting the walls of places I live. I've done rooms in yellow, green, blue, orange... I think the most important part is paying attention to the lighting in the room. If the room is dark and the paint is dark, then it might be too dark overall. I'm sure the swatches will help you decide. Yellow will be fantastic though.
ReplyDeleteI helped a friend paint the outside of her house and I've been remodeling my bathroom for some time now (life keeps getting in the way). I have learned that if you use wallpaper, you need to size the walls properly or it will never come off the wall. I having been dealing with this because the person who put up the wallpaper I had didn't know what they were doing. If you choose to hire someone, definitely get recommendations. Check your local paint store for recommendations. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteI just did the laundry room, but with moving and working, it was too difficult. We hired a painter to do every room (oh hi, pink kitchen!) but if i had the time and energy, I say do it yourself!
ReplyDeletemy husband builds custom homes so we build new homes pretty often. i always pick all the paint colors and have had great luck with it. my best advice is to forget the paint swatches and find something with a color you really adore. take it to the paint store and have them color match it. it works every time.
ReplyDeletewe building right now and i am doing yellow in the dining room. i color matched it to the anthro bowls that will be on open shelving in the kitchen that is adjacent. turned out perfect.
I can't wait to see the finished product! I am guessing it will look like a total magazine spread, just like everything else you post.
ReplyDeleteI meant that in a good way! haha
ReplyDeleteBiggest 2 tips: Paint looks darker the larger the area, and look at your paint chips in every kind of light that that wall experiences. It might look fine in daylight but manky under lights in the evening, for example.
ReplyDeletePretty! I'd love to know what yellow you went with, I've been wanting to paint a wall yellow in our house.
ReplyDeleteI've painted houses countless times. The taping part is probably the most annoying/time consuming thing - but it goes fast if there's more than one person doing it. The painting part is easy. And if you mess up a little, not biggy...you can touch up paint after :D I wouldn't be one to hire anyone to paint, but if you can and don't really want to spend a day painting, I say go for it.
I'd love to paint!!
ReplyDeletei've painted every rental i've lived in (and i don't use painter's tape! a good angled brush and a steady hand is much easier). you can totally do it yourself and it'll save you lots of money. plus it's fun! good luck with you yellow room. i'm sure it will be beautiful.
ReplyDeleteThese days I also really love yellow! I painted our bathroom and 3 walls in our bedroom yellow. As an interior designer, when it comes to choosing the right color, I always get several paint swatches (like 5-10) and tape them all up on the wall I want to paint. I leave them there for 2-3 days and look at them during different times of the day so I get an idea of what they look like in different types of light. Then I eliminate the ones I don't like and eventually find my favorite. And doing the painting yourself is totally doable! My last place had high ceilings and my husband and I were able to paint ourselves and save a lot of money. You could rent an extra long ladder from Home Depot. Once you select a paint, get a primer tinted in the same color- that you should save you on the # of coats you need. And some paint companies also make paint & primer-in-one. Start by cutting the edges of the wall first and around windows, etc. and then paint with a roller in large "W" strokes. After you paint the wall, go over it again very lightly with the roller from top to bottom to even out the color. It's definitely a project though so if it sounds too overwhelming, hiring a painter might be the way to go. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteVery nice, thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteDani, I wrote a post about picking the perfect color a while ago. It might help: http://jfrancesdesign.com/jillianfrances/ten-tips-for-picking-the-perfect-paint-color/
ReplyDeleteI think it's a lot easier to base your decision on something like art or a rug rather than picking an arbitrary color. I definitely think you can make the yellow work, but I would paint a huge swatch on the wall first to make sure it looks good in the light you get in the living room.
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ReplyDeleteamaaaazing.
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Definitely try to do paint swatches, it's the only way to find out if the color on the paper will act the way you want it to in your room's lighting. When using wallpaper, always use it as an accent wall and choose the least dominant color within the wallpaper as the main color for the rest of the walls. If you know you want to use yellow, then find a wallpaper that has the least amount of yellow in it. This will create an interesting mix of contrast and coordination. As far as yellow goes, or any bright color for that matter, ALWAYS choose a color that has a little gray in it. If not, you will end up with a florescent. Always err on the side of a toned down version of your fave color.
ReplyDeleteCan't wait to see what you do!
Painting is fun! My entire home needed new paint when I moved in last year. I hired someone to do the stairwell because of the tall ceilings. But myself and wonderful friends did the rest. Professional painters can be VERY expensive, so if you want to save money it would be a good idea to do some of the work yourself. Plus it's very rewarding and can be down right fun if you have good company.
ReplyDeleteAs for colors, I did not put nearly enough thought into my choices and as a result I am already looking to repaint some areas. My tastes have evolved. Definitely get a sample and paint a swatch up before committing. You'd be amazed how different a color can feel once its actually up on your wall. Good luck!
I do like those shades of yellow. I painted my girls bathroom white last year and I'm already thinking about repainting it yellow!
ReplyDeleteWhat a fun project. And I would love yellow walls, a soft, buttery yellow is my favourite colour. I've only ever painted very bland (white, cream) colours on the walls. I think I've been afraid, because growing up we'd come home from school to find my mother had gotten bored with a colour scheme and painted one or two rooms in our house with whatever leftover paint she could find (sometimes she'd mix the colours from two different tins). We called it the Smarties house (Smarties being similar to M&Ms, if you don't have them). My room was pale apple green, my brother's was rich blue, the lounge room was deep green, the hall was apricot, the laundry was pink... and so it went. I kind of love her freedom with colour, now that I think back.
ReplyDeleteI like the darker of the 2 single color rectangle swatches. It's perfection!! Good luck with the decorating, I know it can be hard to commit! I think doing wallpaper would be awesome. And I've painted walls before and it starts out easy but then it gets hard when you have to do the edges near the ceiling and do the 2nd layer and everything. If you can afford to hire someone, definitely hire someone!!
ReplyDeleteAh, the siren call of paint swatches! I recently painted a guest bedroom Stuart Gold, a Benjamin Moore historical color (it's a little conservative, a little mid-century, a little glowy, never annoying). Did that one myself, and I also believe it's better to do free-hand (unless you have your roller perfectly loaded, it gets under the painters tape). Then go back with a small brush to correct any mistakes. In the house I'm moving into, the dining room is being painted (not by me!) Indian Maize, a brighter version of golden yellow since that room stays dark. We'll see how that goes... Good luck with your project!
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