I’ve been making a lot of decisions about things for my condo. The renovation isn’t a huge project, but there still are a lot of things I need to pick out since everything that is changing has to be decided on. I’m not used to this since I’ve never gotten to pick out so much for somewhere I’m going to be living. I’m just used to making small changes like picking out new furniture.
Now, it’s big decisions like flooring or design. And while this is super exciting, it’s also overwhelming. I completely understand why people hire designers to do most of this work or to only show them one or two options. When you have endless options, it can be hard to pick something. And I think I’ve been pretty lucky with finding things I like and they seem to go together. So for a lot of the big decisions, I’ve checked things off of my list.
But one of the big things I haven’t decided on yet was paint color. While I don’t mind the off-white that is currently in the condo, because we are doing work we will have to repaint no matter what. So instead of sticking with the color that is there, I wanted to pick out a color I like. I’ve never been able to paint my place, so I was excited about it. And because doing this stuff is more fun with a friend, I asked my friend Pamela if she wanted to come with me to the paint store to look at options. And thank goodness that she was free and wanted to come!
The first time at the paint store was all about picking out the little paper samples of the colors. I knew I was looking at off-whites that likely were more cool-toned or a pale gray. I also wanted to look at options for my bedroom and I was also thinking a gray could be nice. And the one bold color I wanted to find was a nice blue that I could use for one wall because I wanted to set up an area that I could do self-tape auditions in and not need to use a backdrop. Even though the colors I was considering were limited, there were so many options. And I’m glad I went to a store that was only for a specific brand of paint and not a store with dozens of brands so it wasn’t more overwhelming.
Then we went back to the condo and started looking at the ones we picked. I had forgotten to bring tape with me, but I found some double-stick fabric tape in my purse so we used that to put the samples on the wall.
We were putting them side by side because some of these colors were either going to be an accent color or we knew they might go on adjacent walls. We had more samples than this, but for a lot of them we looked at them away from the paint store and immediately knew they were wrong. So from the dozen or so ones I originally looked at, I decided on 4 colors I wanted to get samples of so I could paint some test areas.
The next day, I went back to the paint store to order my samples. Fortunately, it was a pretty quick process and I was at the condo shortly after and ready to paint on the walls. Because I know the colors can look different on different walls, I did test spots on 10 different areas. And when I knew the colors might be next to each other, I put them super close and made sure I could get an idea of how it would look if the two colors were side by side.
The only color I feel certain about is the darker blue I picked for a self-tape area. I think that color is perfect and I know that’s exactly what I want that wall to be. But for the overall color, I’m still not certain. So I’m going to go back this weekend and get more samples so I can feel good about what we pick since I will be seeing a lot of that color.
I really didn’t think it would be this tough to pick a color since I haven’t ever really cared too much about the color on my walls. I’ve always lived somewhere that had a neutral off-white and I’ve been fine with that. But when I have to pick my own neutral, it’s not easy!
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