Saturday, February 19, 2011

Paint Colors

I've had several questions about paint colors. I have always had such a hard time picking out colors from a swatch that translated well when applied to an entire wall. Recently I've gotten a little better at this with Sherwin Williams colors but for most of the rooms I have painted I have taken advantage of color matching. The color for our bedroom and bathroom in the Alabama house were taken from a pillow sham. I custom mixed the blue for the kitchen/dining room, the green for the nursery, and the tan for the hallway/living room from samples when I couldn't find just the right shades I wanted. If you are having a hard time finding your perfect color and think you could mix one, go ahead! I had a hard time with the green in the nursery because it seemed like the colors were either too limey, too bright, or didn't have quite enough yellow in them. When I combined a few colors and added some white I got just what I wanted. Make sure to test your color on the wall and let it dry before deciding. Paint a scrap piece of drywall or even a piece of paper to take to the paint store for them to match. Then hold on to your paint formula and you can buy the color for as many projects as you need!

This is the color we used in our bedroom and the bathroom:






This is the color we used for the kitchen and dining room:


I don't know why I wrote "dark" on there but you can just ignore that.




For all of our trim and our white cabinets we used Valspar Swiss Coffee (formerly Sawyer White). I am now using Greek Villa by Sherwin Williams as the white in our new house. For the black on our French doors and our cabinets we used Black of Night by Sherwin Williams.

I can't find the formulas for the living room tan or the nursery green but if I come across them I will definitely post them. 



10 comments:

  1. Hi, I'm Joy from Thrifty Parsonage Living and your newest follower. I came to your blog via Chic on a Shoestring Decorating. I've been enjoying looking at your blog and all the work you did in your home. Great job!

    ReplyDelete
  2. ooh look! another SC blogger! :) Nice to meetcha, I moved here in 2009.

    ANyway I just mixed up a color for my powder room last month, because I couldn't find the right shade of blue/green/gray. I had some SW light french gray, so I started adding some blue green paint, and eventually got a color I liked. The problem is that I will never be able to recreate it, so good thing it was just the tiny powder room! ha!

    I love your colors, I am trying to choose some right now and it's very very difficult :(

    ReplyDelete
  3. LOVE that you started a blog! :) and your color choices are FABULOUS - you all have excellent taste! :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. I just popped over from visiting layla's blog and your kitchen just hollered out to me! I love it - i love the entire house - it's a shame that you're not going to get to enjoy it - but hallelujah for the answered prayer that's taking you to your new home. God is awesome and i'll be following you in your new adventure :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. I've given you a Stylish Blogger Award! You can go to my blog and get a copy of the award (copy and paste the award button)along with instructions.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Thanks for posting these!

    ReplyDelete
  7. I just came across your blog from My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia. I LOVE your home! So pretty. I'm a new follower.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Rachel, I have a question for you. I am getting ready to have my kitchen cabinets painted white. I have white appliances that are almost brand new so I am not replacing them. Did you find that the Valspar Swiss Coffee matched your white appliances pretty well? They look like an exact match in the pictures but I'm so nervous to get the wrong white and it end up looking bad against the appliances. I'm sure someday we will get stainless steel but that isn't happening right now. Would love to hear your thoughts on it! :)

    Thanks!

    Heather @At The Picket Fence

    ReplyDelete
  9. Heather, I found that the Swiss Coffee was a little different from the white appliances but not enough to really bother me. However, I would recommend using Sherwin Williams Greek Villa. I am using that in our current kitchen. We are slowly transitioning to stainless steel but the Greek Villa looks great with the white appliances we still have. It's a little less buttery than the Swiss Coffee but not to stark. I hope that helps. I can't wait to see pics of your kitchen!

    Rachel

    ReplyDelete
  10. Heya i'm for the first time here. I found this board and I find It really useful & it helped me out a lot. I hope to give something back and help others like you aided me.

    Feel free to surf to my site ... Use This Link

    ReplyDelete