The first rash of painting in my house was done before I moved in, and the colors were selected as follows.
Living room:
Looked at gray paint chips, two samples, chose the lighter one. Boom - living room is painted Bay Waves by Valspar.
Dining room:
Endless pouring over blue paint chips, two samples, chose the darker one. Boom - dining room is painted Tinsel Beam by Valspar.
Verdict: Love it. This is a great light blue on the edge of slate blue which blends seamlessly with the living room gray.
Bedroom:
Sorted through green paint chips, one sample of sage green, it looked like puke. Scrambled to choose a second paint chip, got a sample, thought it was okay. Bedroom is Desert Seedling by Valspar.
Verdict: Like it. It's a good girly mint green, but I had intended more of a sage green. I also find this green hard to accessorize or match with anything because I don't shop a lot and I'm an engineer.
Craft room:
Endless pouring over yellow paint chips, two samples of butter yellow, chose the darker one, Maple Cream by Valspar.
Verdict: It's too dark. This room is very small (that desk is the actual width of the room) and it's also dark - that window is under a porch. I also used satin paint, which was too shiny for a small room too. If I repaint this room (and I might) it would be two to three shades light, in eggshell finish at the shiniest. This room's walls also have an issue where the paint will stick to anything that leans against it. If I repaint I would investigate super-duper primer like the VOC-heavy, this-might-be-the-most-ethanol-intoxicated-I've-ever-been BIN Zinsser shellac-base primer I used on the kitchen cabinets. That stuff seems to penetrate well, and for this room it would have to get through not only the two coats of Valspar primer and two coats of Valspar paint put on during my ownership of the house but also the blue paint I was covering up, and however many layers are between the blue and the pink layer that shows up after the peeling.
The next wave of painting was for the third bedroom. Since I wasn't under the time-crunch of having to move in, this time I wanted to make sure I chose the right color. I wanted a warm, ocean blue to cover up the horror of the icy toothpaste green the walls and trim (the musty, unpleasant upholstery in this photo was ripped out far before I got around to painting):
Third bedroom:
Endless pouring over blue and teal and green paint chips. No fewer than six samples. Maybe more. Maybe I didn't photograph all the samples. Maybe I don't want to go to the shed and count the sample containers. In any case, I settled on Behr Aqua Spray, adjusted to 75%.
Verdict: I like it, but it's not what I intended. I wanted it to be slightly greener. It's also darker than it should be. But this room is big enough that it's not too dark. So it's good, it works. And this room taught me that if you're trying to paint something white that wasn't previously white, like that trim, use primer! Three coats of paint, all done with an artist's brush by hand, shaping out that inexplicably wave-shaped trim. I thought that green wasn't very dark but it was. It was.
Kitchen:
Benjamin Moore doesn't sell samples. I had decided to use their Advance paint, so I would have would be chips. So I taped some paint chips on the cabinets, liked Marscapone, bought it. Choosing the wall color was a cycle of taping paint chips next to the tile, choosing three samples, mulling over it, choosing the one I had liked first on the chips, Benjamin Moore's Everlasting (which I remember as "Perdurable" which was the Spanish name on the chip).
Verdict: These were just the right colors. The white is not too white, the tan is warm and is bold enough to offset the amount of white cabinets, and to draw away from the bold tile. I'm very pleased with how these turned out.
The next painting job was the bathroom. Choosing a bathroom color was difficult because the tile and linoleum are black and white, and I couldn't decide what color went with them. Yes, they're neutrals but still certain colors "go" better. I can't explain it, color is something I'm weird about. I've read that women who are carriers for color-blindness, like I am, might actually see an expanded palette of colors, which might explain it. The bathroom was also difficult because I had to see past the dolphins:
That wallpaper border is dolphins, the shower curtain was a double-layer thick of dolphins, the robe hooks were shaped like dolphins, and the light fixtures were Baroque gold.
The color decision for the bathroom went something along the lines of "I like green. I'll do green." Choosing the paint color went like this:
Bathroom:
Looked for green/black/white bathrooms online. Couldn't find many. Looked at color suggestions on Young House Love, liked their previous nursery color. Poured over paint chips. Got two samples: one the Celery Sticks Young House Love used, one a similar Benjamin Moore color. Liked Celery Sticks but after the third bedroom experience thought it might be too dark so I went to Home Depot and asked for a 50% lighter sample. It was twice as dark as the original. Argued with the guy behind the counter. He re-made it three times and it kept turning out darker. I refused to pay for any of the samples and left, never to return to the San Carlos Home Depot again. Went to the San Mateo Home Depot, they made a sample that at least was lighter but now looked like a different color (much more yellow). Made my own 75% sample by mixing the two previous samples, it was okay but I was indecisive and just went, "To heck with it. I like Celery Sticks, just do Celery Sticks". So the bathroom is Celery Sticks.
Verdict: Freaking love it. This is my favorite paint color in the house. A lot of the other colors I chose because they're nice or sophisticated or they coordinate with what they need to coordinate with. But this green is for me. I love green and this is the right green.
What I've learned from all this is to go with my gut. If I like it, I'll like it. If I think too hard I might not make the right choice. Since I'm the person who has to live with it, it's my opinion that matters.
I've also learned that contrary to what you would think, any color will look better once it's over a giant wall. Not sure how that works.
