Palace Project Part 5: Painting

I am a colorful person. I love to be surrounded by color. As you know, my house is purple, which is the thing that I love most about it. However, the inside of my house is gray. Drab boring ugly gray. Some would call it taupe and say it's "a nice neutral" or something. But when I look at the walls, I think bo-ring. Or at least I did...until we started painting.

A few entries ago I posted a picture of my inspiration room. I really wanted a lovely zen space with lots of green tones where everything would be serene and beautiful and peaceful. So I decided to start with green walls.

First, I had to decide exactly which green I wanted.  I read lots of blogs and sites on how to choose a paint color, because once you've painted a room, you can't really un-paint it. So I didn't want to be stuck with a color that I didn't like. When you paint, the color will look different in different light, so you have to be sure that you like it all day, and not just in the morning when the sun hits it just right. So I tested out the paint colors. This consisted of one week of painting splotches on the wall and staring at them for a while each day.

I ended up choosing the one on the bottom right that is painted there twice. The other colors seemed a bit too light.

Fortunately, my brother has a good friend who is a painter. But I wanted to get in on the fun, so the whole family came and helped out. It was an exciting day! This is how the living room turned out:

Also, if you remember my inspiration photos for my office, you know I like orange and pink. I was originally thinking that since my office is a fairly small, fairly dark room, I should choose a light color to brighten it up. As it turns out (thank you, internet), the best colors for dark rooms are rich, saturated colors. So I choose this beautiful orange that brings me joy and happiness every time I enter the room! Here's how it turned out:

The Palace is so much more beautiful already! Next up: furniture shopping!