Go Back to the Beginning

Ever since I finally found the perfect color for the fireplace, I've been on the hunt for the perfect gray for the walls in our living room.

Our fireplace is painted Seal by Martha Stewart.  

 Credit

Our living room walls were a yellowy-khaki color when we moved in.  (We have yellowy-khaki, yellow, sherbet lime green, powder blue and white left from the previous owners. EVERYTHING needs paint!)

Grays are funny creatures.  First, they have really showy undertones.  Now look, I'm not fancy art person, but even *I* can see the undertones in the various grays we have tried.

Some looked blue, some looked purple, some even had a GREEN undertone.  It was just weird, weird, weird!  Some were silver and your really couldn't see a color in the bright daylight.  It just gave a funny glow to the walls!

If gray paint swatches were money I'd be a rich, rich woman.  I've grabbed a zillion grays during every home improvement store trip we've taken for a long, long time.

Nothing sang to me. 

So then I thought.. Hmmmm.. maybe if I did that whole wall in the living room in Martha Stewart's Seal... maybe it would work.  And I'd only need to paint the other three walls.

And I tried it.  But it was no bueno.  It's too much for our room.

So I left it.  I periodically cruised different home blogs looking for THE perfect Gray.  That corner of the room looked terrible and every now and then it really bugged me.

Especially when we hosted company one weekend. *blush*

Anyway, so I've been doing some smaller painting projects and using up some of my sample pots.  Sample pots are the best thing ever!  First, paint usually looks different than the card.  Second, you can try it without huge commitment and third, they are cheap and work for small projects.  Sample jars are usually less than $3!

So I was painting a wooden magazine holder I picked up at Goodwill that was $2.12 after the 50% discount.  (They discount by sticker color here.)

I pulled out a sample that I had gotten color matched to Benjamin Moore's Revere Pewter.

Anyway, I've been painting this little piece off and on for several days.

Last night I was sitting in the living room moseying around Pinterest when I jumped up and practically ran to the garage.  Brandon followed closely behind asking if there was something wrong.

I picked up my sample jar and came back to the living room where I asked Brandon, "Do you think this would work?"

He had the most bewildered look on his face.  "All of that... was about paint?"

*blush*  Yes dear.

He asked me to paint some on the walls in different areas.

And we really liked it.  But it was night time and the lighting is bad in our living room.  I couldn't help taking a picture though.

The dark gray on the left is the same color as our fireplace.  Revere Pewter is next and then the white trim. 

Tested on another wall.  Next to the floor lamp.  You can see the yellow-khaki that the walls currently are.  Well.. most of them. LOL!

So we waited until morning to see it in daylight.

And I dare say, we LOVE it.

Wanna hear a funny story?  This is the color I had picked for the foreclosure home that we gave up on.  Seriously.... sometimes you just have to go back to the beginning.

Hopefully, we can carve out a bit of time to paint the walls.  We have company coming at the beginning of next month.  And I'd really appreciate not having to creatively crop pictures.

~Stephanie