How We Pick a Paint Color

The Nester did a post on how to pick a paint color.

It was after we picked a paint color for our living room.

She had links with other suggestions and recommendations on how to pick a paint color. All of them were about neutral paint colors.

We did not pick a neutral paint color.

I've mentioned many times that my favorite color is blue. I realize that I cannot paint every room in my house blue.

I've also mentioned that my favorite color combination is fuchsia and orange, and I also realize that those paint colors would not look good in my living room. Soft versions of those colors might go in Chatty's room, but that's the extent of those colors for any room in our home.

We also have a lot of Americana in our home and that color scheme. I love the blue and cranberry colors. I love stars and Colonial art. But dark blue on my living room wall didn't seem an option, and cranberry red also didn't seem an option. No red seemed an option.

And before you say, "I saw your post the other day when you were starting. You painted it red!" Nope, not red. That's the disadvantage of lighting, cameras, computers, and monitors.

Our way to pick a paint color was not using a pillow or other accent in the room as a starting point. We also knew we couldn't use a neutral in the brown family since we had different wood colors, a brown sofa, and a tan/camel-ish extra large chair (that The Nester would also despise).

Our expert way to pick a paint color — take the pair of shorts the color I loved that I thought might look good, hold it up all over the room, take it to Home Depot and have it color matched in the Behr Paint Plus Primer, and paint the walls.




It's a dark burnt orange color.

Here are the shorts in front of my red and pink shirts.

We've also moved our furniture around, which I was thinking about doing and was further encouraged after reading another post by The Nester. She's making all kinds of work for Hubby. He's going to not like her after he reads this post.

But I can't share pictures with you yet. I will as soon as someone in the house paints three of the wood shelves that are in the living room that I've had since I was a senior in high school. They're going to be painted the same eggshell-ish color as the trim in the room.

We still have the kitchen to finish too. I never have been able to stand caulking. I found out that dealing with grout is thousands times worse. Now we need to caulk around the tile and paint the kitchen. I'll let that color be a surprise. Hubby said maybe he'll paint the kitchen in a month and a half when the nightmare from the living room is gone. Edges with dark paint weren't fun.