The last time I had to pick paint colours for our home, I was bursting at the seams with Stella in my belly and living in my parents’ basement while Hubby frantically finished major renovations on our house. I don’t remember it being all that difficult. I went to the local Benjamin Moore store and picked up a few swatches and called it a day.
But now? It’s 10 years later and we moved into a new house last summer. And now I am paralyzed with indecision. PARALYZED.
I think this has to do with the fact that our house is so “open concept” and that one colour will need to be used virtually everywhere because there are no natural breaks for one colour to start and another to end. And I don’t want to pick the wrong colour!
Sure, people say, “Oh, it’s just paint. You can just paint over it if you don’t like it.” Um, no, that’s not happening here. Hubby will do paint once. That’s it. No second chances. (And I don’t blame him one bit. It’s a big, tedious job!)
Beyond the paint colours, I was just as flummoxed about what to do about furniture choices and placement, curtains, carpets … well, just about everything! I reached out to my friend Andrea who writes for a number of home design magazines (or “Shelter mags,” I think the cool folks say!) to see if she could recommend an interior designer. And that’s how I came to have Tanya Collins over at our home one night. I was a bit nervous to even have her over — we’re in the ‘burbs not Westboro or the Glebe, and the house is virtually void of furniture since our last home was half the size (or maybe even a third; let’s just say it was very small!).
Anyhow, I shouldn’t have been because Tanya whirled her way right in and rolled up her sleeves. Immediately, she seemed to have a vision for how the whole main floor could play out. I just loved her! She had no pretensions about her and she clearly just loved her work so much. She was only here for two hours, but every minute was worthwhile.
For paint colour on the walls, she said “White.” No if’s, but’s, or maybe’s — white.
I was concerned … wouldn’t it look too stark? Cold? She said that our artwork would really “pop,” with white walls and that the art, furniture, and carpet would provide the colour and warmth.
Then she referred back to some of the magazine pictures I’d torn our to share with her, “See! In all the pictures here, they have white walls!” And true enough, they did all have white walls. Here are some examples, to give you an idea:
I’m obsessed with art walls!
This image was sourced on Pinterest and links back to Hopscotch + Grace and then eventually links back to the following photo credit: Graciela Cattarossi.
This image was sourced on Pinterest and links back to Emily Henderson.
She then pulled out colour swatches and started showing me different whites. Honestly, to me white is white is white. I can’t tell the difference! And neither can Hubby. So she made an executive decision and determined that our choice for walls was Benjamin Moore Cloud White.
BM Cloud White
After she left, I felt elated and relieved that the decision was made. Our place would look fabulous! Our place would look like the photos in the magazines that I liked!
But then, a friend came over: she didn’t think that white walls suited us. And another friend who has an excellent eye for colour stayed silent when I told her. Hmmm …
Then, to top it all off, the Benjamin Moore guy says to me, “White walls? No, you won’t like white walls!”
Now, I start to back-peddle into indecision. *sigh* I don’t like indecision!
So I reached out to my fellow blogger Giulia over at Fishly News. She often does posts about her home and I really admire her design savvy. Coincidentally, she had just used Cloud White paint in her bathroom makeover. You can see it here in the white stripes.
Photo credit: Fishly News. Source.
Giulia immediately batted away my fears about white paint and told me in an email:
I think Cloud White is a great idea. It’s actually a warm white with a creamy undertone without being yellow. So if you use Cloud White it should not be stark, but it will be fresh.
So, I think I’m going to go for it! White walls … with children … hard to say if the walls are institutional or just me!
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