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Colors Real and Imaginary
Jan. 29th, 2018 09:11 pmNow that I have the walls in my living room ready for painting, I'm itching to drag some prospective painters in here and get an estimate. However, I still haven't picked out a color yet and the search for the right shade of this or that is driving me nuts.
Historically, I have not been good at this. My bedroom has been painted four times in the last 16 years. From chocolate brown (my sister's suggestion), to a horrible reddish-brown that looked like make-up, to wedding white (which turned pink-ish in unnatural light), to "harvest brown," the color I finally got that looked good. Such experiences have left me gunshy about what the color looks like at the store and at home.
Behr.com has a paint color selection software tool. It's a fun little program to try out colors in various rooms. The problem is that your limited to the color scheme on your computer monitor. It looks good in the photo, but your monitor may have the colors slightly off. When I went to Home Depot tonight, the color sample cards for the colors I picked out look very different than the online tool. I asked the lady at the paint counter about it, but she said that she would trust the cards more than the online tool.
I went there to get some paint samples to see how they look on the wall, but my i'm not sure if my walls have been painted before, or are they just the drywall. I suspect they are the latter, which irritates me.
So, I'm stuck. Do I pick the colors I like and give it a go? I'm tempted to use "harvest brown" in the living room, since I know what it looks like and it is dead-on the sample card. However, I hate the idea of using the same color throughout so much of the house, even if I like it so much.
Ugh... this is such a pain. Anyone have any ideas that would help?
Historically, I have not been good at this. My bedroom has been painted four times in the last 16 years. From chocolate brown (my sister's suggestion), to a horrible reddish-brown that looked like make-up, to wedding white (which turned pink-ish in unnatural light), to "harvest brown," the color I finally got that looked good. Such experiences have left me gunshy about what the color looks like at the store and at home.
Behr.com has a paint color selection software tool. It's a fun little program to try out colors in various rooms. The problem is that your limited to the color scheme on your computer monitor. It looks good in the photo, but your monitor may have the colors slightly off. When I went to Home Depot tonight, the color sample cards for the colors I picked out look very different than the online tool. I asked the lady at the paint counter about it, but she said that she would trust the cards more than the online tool.
I went there to get some paint samples to see how they look on the wall, but my i'm not sure if my walls have been painted before, or are they just the drywall. I suspect they are the latter, which irritates me.
So, I'm stuck. Do I pick the colors I like and give it a go? I'm tempted to use "harvest brown" in the living room, since I know what it looks like and it is dead-on the sample card. However, I hate the idea of using the same color throughout so much of the house, even if I like it so much.
Ugh... this is such a pain. Anyone have any ideas that would help?
