It all started a few weeks ago. My oldest and my youngest daughters are decorators-and quite good ones. Every post I see about a room or complete home they have done, I LOVE. Now I definitely have my own ideas and I know what I like and I don't like, but I was just mentioning to daughter #3 that I thought the family room could probably use a bit of an update and asked her to think about it. That was about as far as it went until I learned that she had arranged for the whole gang to come for Mother's Day weekend to re-do the family room. And, before that completely settled, Jen was at my door with literally 25-30 jars of paint samples. And, before that had time to process, color was being "swatched onto the walls, wood and fireplace!
In her defense, I did consent to FINALLY painting the wood. It is a long, sad story but long ago, I kind of got tired of the barn wood and decided to white wash it all. It was a tedious project and after looking at it for a few days, I couldn't stand it another minute and I proceeded to re-stain every bit of the wood. That being said, I think it was the white wash effect I didn't like so much. Now that we have tried out some color ( and yes, these are all colors - not white ), I think I will be fine!
This is what my family room has looked like ( at least the walls and wood. The fireplace has gone from used brick to white painted brick to what is now Venetian stucco) for a good number of years. I love the coziness of the wood but I just think it needs an update and short of bringing in a contractor and reconfiguring that horrible cabinet in the corner (which served a purpose when we did it. The circuit breaker box is behind the top part and our TV actually fit on the shelf so the furniture in the room was all turned in that direction) or an electrician to move cable and power boxes so the current TV could be mounted over the fireplace and we could once again have one focal point, paint is the obvious answer. At least budget wise.
We toyed with one color on the walls, another on the wood and maybe yet a third on the fireplace but we kept coming back to the idea of freshening the whole room up and that just seemed to scream LIGHT.
This is just a sampling of the swatches. The rest have already been painted over to give us larger spots to compare. I really was going to go with a dark putty color for the fireplace but in the end, my mirror and lanterns just kind of blended in. Not a good look. I think we may still use it on the door and in the back of the shelves.
I love decorating but I can't tell you how much I could never do this for a living. We were at it for almost 3 hours! The same paint looks totally different on each surface let alone where that surface is in the room. Each time we picked a "winner", it would appear orchid or pink or green in another area of the room. I finally convinced myself that if I went really light it would look like all of the beautiful homes in South Hampton that I see in the decorating magazines. Yep, that's right, just like that!! Lol
Believe it or not, this is only one color. The top on the left and on the left of the right side patches are the color. The bottom on the left and the rightest of the right side are that color at 150% intensity. But look how different they both look from the wall to the wood!
No matter what, it will be a change! And I have finally decided to be like those rich people who live in those beautiful homes. I am going to turn over control to my decorators! Well, at least a little. There will be some furniture moving and editing as well plus, I think, a new rug.I trust them. I think they have a vision...hope I see it at the end. I do know that no matter what I will have the most wonderful Mother's Day because my reasons for celebration will all be here with me-with the rest of the gang thrown in for good measure. And I'll bet we don't go hungry either! Lol Hope everyone has a wonderful Mother's Day and you can bet I'll be back with pictures soon. Stay tuned.
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