using paint to reinvent your space
It's been four years since we built and moved into our home. Our floor plan is open concept and all the first floor rooms bleed together. So when we make a decision on wall paint color, we better be ready to live with it. This can make painting expensive if planning to hire a painter. I estimated that my first floor (based on what I paid several years ago) would have been somewhere around $2,000+. Not wanting to spend the money, I committed to doing it myself and setting aside a few hours each night for about a week or so to get the job done. NOTE: The hubs does not paint - so I was flying solo on this project :)
I started by gathering samples on some greige shades that I had read about or have seen in photos. Selecting the perfect greige for your home is no easy feat! Let me tell you - - some pull blue, some pull pink, and ones that looked great in my friend's home looked awful in my home! I have a passive solar setup with eight windows facing south in my home. There's tons of natural light so I found that I ultimately had to go one shade darker than I thought I would with the paint I chose.
ADVICE: Spend the money to buy paint samples and paint them onto your wall. Spend a couple of days looking at the way the paint looks on your own walls. Also - look at the darkest color on the paint card and it will show you the base color it will pull.
After a couple days and a few hours of driving my poor family nuts, we decided on color. I painted three walls and then guess what? I decided I hated it. So we started over and decided to go with Edgecomb Gray by Benjamin Moore. You can see how light it looks against the previous color was was Ethereal Mood by Sherwin Williams. We absolutely loved that color too but just needed a change!
After doing the walls I felt like the front door really needed an update too. The builders had put a high-gloss brown on the door. I opted for a matte paint in a color called Cracked Pepper by Behr. It's the same color we chose to paint our family room (full blog post on that here). I used an angled brush to brush the whole door to avoid the 'orange-peel' look of a roller. It turned out AMAZING!
Overall I'm so happy with the update. I spent less than $200 on paint supplies and gave my entire first floor a facelift. I'm so glad this is done for the holidays and can't wait to see how everything looks as we break out the holiday decor. I especially love how our new farm table and chairs looks against the walls and dark flooring. LOVE LOVE LOVE!!!
The kitchen took a bit of patience and a steady hand as there was a lot of cutting to be done. The end result is really stunning! The natural light, new faux brick backsplash and dark island really stand out now!
Had a little fun with painters tape here and added some random lines to add visual interest to this small hallway. It came out so cute and will literally take a few brush strokes to get rid of if we tire of it.
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