the Right Paint Color

New House, check. Tons of possible projects, check. No money, check. Where to begin....

First, we needed to free ourselves from the passion of pink, so our first move was to paint as much of the house as we could. Initially, I wanted a fresh slate and thought to just paint everything white but when my savvy husband convinced some painters we had used in the past to do a cheap day rate, I figured we should pick real colors if we were going to use the pros.

Before picking colors, a little bit about me. I love neutrals and tend to decorate in white, wood and metal. Since buying 24th St, my style has become a bit more modern but when I describe anything to my husband the word "rustic" comes out time and time again. I really can't get enough grey and tend to always gravitate towards that when picking a shade.

Back to the house, I had 3 days to pick my colors for the living room, bedroom and dining room. I had been obsessing over a picture in the now defunct (shed a tear) Domino Mag that highlighted muted metallic walls.  I was determined to do a shiny champagne in the bedroom but upon further research found that the metallic colors weren't as successful in real life especially with our textured walls (thanks Browner Brown).

(Image via Domino)

The Inspiration

Upon further digging, I discovered the room in the picture was actually that of editor Dara Caponigro (love!) and in another story she referenced that the room was painted in Benjamin Moore's Early Morning Mist. But our room faced west and without the direct sunlight the color looked too creamy.  I went with a similar color from Benjamin Moore called Light Pewter, which was slightly more grey and loved the results so much, I ended up doing all three rooms in the shade.  The bedroom was done in an eggshell to give a slight shimmer (it wasn't metallic but who was I kidding?)

(Image: Benjamin Moore: Early Morning Mist)

(Image: Benjamin Moore: Light Pewter

Before Living room (OK not pink but still needed help)

Living room in progress

Before Bedroom

Bedroom in progress