Wednesday, August 02, 2006

Adventures in Color

I had this bright idea to paint our living room two colors - gold and maroon. We went to the hardware store, tried to match the new carpet with the paint, and then proceeded home. After painting the primer on Sunday, hubby started on the color I thought would go well with the living room Monday night. He called me that night and I could hear the hesitation in his voice.

"Uh, hon, do you want to come over and look at this?"

"Why? What's wrong?"

"Well, it just doesn't look like I thought it would."

Me, uncharacteristically breezy: "Oh, I'm sure it's fine. What does it matter anyway? We're selling the place."

"Okay, if you say so."

I really should have heeded the warning in his voice.

Last night, I walked into the house and gasped in horror. (I'm not kidding. I really did gasp in horror.)

"It looks hot pink!" I wailed.

(Yes, I really did wail, too. This was traumatic, people!)

Hubby: "That's why I wanted you to come and look at it the other day."

I honestly don't know what happened, but that is not the color I had picked out. Thankfully, we only got one wall painted (and just one coat) so we're going to abandon that color and pick out something a little less...bold.

I'm thinking plain ol' white.

10 comments:

  1. Sean learned a long time ago to, if possible, get tester pots and do test patches, just to SEE how the colour actually looks on the wall. Of course, it looks kinda funny, with strips of different paint, but it does save some pain later.

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  2. Oh no! I really like the tester pots too.

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  3. Tess - that is a great idea. Why didn't we think of that? Because we always have to learn things the hard way for some reason!!! ;-)

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  4. Anonymous3:27 PM

    Melissa, red is a notoriously weak and squirrely color. Are you sure it won't be the correct color after several coats? It's one of those hues that must be built up. We easily did 4 coats in our bedroom before our deep red looked right.

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  5. Jason, we might keep at it and see what happens. I should have heeded the salesman's warning about red being a very hard color to get right.

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  6. Anonymous3:52 PM

    bright pink, huh?? Interesting choice of color...

    I vote for the tester cans of paint too. I've had too many paint surprises without testing first!

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  7. I have acid pink walls that will soon be going because of a similar mishap. Live and learn :)

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  8. Hubby and I decided to add more coats of paint and see what it looks like. Wish us luck!!!

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  9. Anonymous10:14 AM

    I am partial to pink, however maybe not for a room :) I made a similar mistake in my living room. How was I to know that "bamboo" equalled "mint green"?

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  10. Marty - I'm not a big pink gal and especially not for my living room - on the other hand, my six-year-old daughter took one look at it and LOVED it. :-)

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