Butter with a touch of daffodil

Yesterday I finished painting India’s bedroom. It’s cute, but still too messy to take an “after” picture. The bathroom next to India’s room is the main floor bath, and I couldn’t help but notice how boring and ugly it is. The color on the walls is the same beige that is in a lot of our house. It is the color I am trying my best to eradicate. Beige is not really an appropriate name, though. The color should be called “Dingy” or perhaps “New York City Puddle”. Drab and unappealing.

I thought about breaking out the pale green paint that I used in my bedroom and throwing on a few coats in the bathroom, but India reminded me that we have green paint in nearly every room that I’ve painted (most of the rooms have two colors so don’t think my house is head-to-toe monochromatic. Plus they’re all different shades of green.)  I have no yellow in my house yet, so that’s what I decided to go with. Yellow matches with the light blue and green that I have throughout the first floor.  

I’m sure you’ve done enough paining to know that choosing a color is more than just glancing at a few swatches at the hardware store and then handing one to the lady at the paint counter. This is my normal process:

–Go to Home Depot (I like their paint the best.  I really love the little sample sizes that you can get at Lowe’s, though.  I hate having to buy a whole quart just to try out a color!*  But Lowe’s paint-matching qualities are a little substandard, if you ask me). Get a whole ton of swatch cards. Stare at the swatches for several days and get it narrowed down to a couple that look promising.

–Back to Home Depot to get two quarts of the chosen colors ($11 each. Rip off!). Return home to paint large test patches on the wall.  Marvel at how completely different the actual paint looks from the swatch cards.  Are they even the same colors?  Decide paint swatches are completely pointless.

–Back to Home Depot to try just one more color. This one will be it.  The Holy Grail of Yellows. 

–It’s not.  Too bright.  The first color was too dark,  The second color too pasty.  Hey, maybe too dark + too light + a touch of too pasty would be just right!

–Get out a few plastic cups to make a some custom paint concoctions.  Try them on the wall. That’s more like it!  Now the wall is resembling a really hideous quilt.  Ask any family member who passes by which color they like.  Dismiss their opinion because what do they know?

–Settle on one color.  Paint a white index card with a couple of coats of it.

–Take the card to Home Depot (try not to look murderous when the same paint guy says, “did you miss me?”) and have it color matched.  Now you have the recipe for your perfect color.  

Here is my Wall o’ Yellow (It only took me five tries to get a nice yellow.  I’m getting so good at this.  It took me 13 tries to find the perfect green for my bedroom. The letter next to each swatch is for the name of the color.  Otherwise it gets too confusing.) The winner is M2 on the bottom.

It’s a delicious buttery yellow that is not too pale, not too bright; warm and sunny, not lemony.

Here is the recipe if you’re in the market for a lovely yellow. Or you can go through all this nonsense yourself.  Be my guest!

And the best part of my painting frenzy?  The green and yellow paint in my hair from leaning against a wet wall not once, but twice.  TWICE!  And it’s church today.  

P.S. I don’t know if painting burns any calories, but I was so exhausted last night I barely made it into my bed before crashing.  My body feels like an arthritic old woman’s this morning.  

*The lady at Home Depot told me that they’ll be getting the equipment to make small sample sizes sometime in the next few months. Hooray!

| Filed under Decorating

9 thoughts on “Butter with a touch of daffodil

  1. I remember the green wall in your bedroom – you always pick good colors. I want to see pictures of the little girl’s room! You did the pink and green, right?

  2. yellows are the hardest ever!! I went through many lowes samples before settling on one for my family room which is a huge painters death trap- but how I love a good color!

  3. I am glad to hear that Home Depot is finally going to be able to make smaller paint containers. I went to lowe’s a lot this summer when helping my in-laws paint about 5 rooms in their house simply because we couldn’t stand to waste a whole quart on a wrong color. But I agree, their paint matching is horrible! If you’re going for what’s on the swatch, they’re fine. But if you’re trying to match to a pillow or a homemade color swatch or a swatch from another company, forget it!

    Can’t wait to see the after pictures.

  4. that is what you get for painting on sunday 😉

    i love the yellow! i had a yellow craft room in my last house and i loved it. it was so warm and inviting. just what you need for a bathroom! good luck. can’t wait to see all the finished work. if you need fun vinyl for india’s room, let me know 🙂

  5. Sounds like my nightmare!
    Kwal Paint has the best shade of yellow ever, it’s called “Beach Basket”. It is so so pretty!!!

  6. Oh how I love and hate painting. In our house in Utah James and I had a nightmare 24 hours, where we repainted our front room 3 different times, and colors. Yikes! I am not talking about just different shades of yellow, although one of the times was yellow, like fiesta/pinata yellow, ugh.

    I feel your pain. I am also so glad that you were able to use your talents and skills to make the color that you really liked. Love the hair, I am sure that you would look lovely with golden locks.

  7. Picking paint is most painful! I have 5 full color decks from different paint stores, painted most of my house this summer and am now a blue, green and yellow expert. If you need color samples…come to my house! I vow each time to never do it again, but the next time rolls around I think I’m going to be that much better. Story never changes.

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