Paint Colors in Our Home 2016
Hi friends! We've been knee deep in back-to-school preparations over here and I'm sending my son off to his first day of 1st grade today! #whendidhegetsobig?! Even though it's always bittersweet seeing summer come to an end, I'm actually ready for school to start this year and that's a first! I may or may not have been counting down these last couple of days like Christmas was coming! Come this afternoon, I might be changing my tune and all sappy missing my boy, but right now, I'm all #yayforschool! We'll see if "my kid gets himself ready for school by himself without me nagging" is still working from last year today! We talked about it last night before bed and as I type this, it's 5 minutes until his first alarm goes off . . .
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A frequent question I get via email is about the paint colors in our home, and especially whether the grey in our bedroom and bath is a 'true' grey or does it read blue or purple in person? And also, how is the 'greige' in our downstairs? Today, I'm answering your questions (even though I always respond to emails too!) and sharing all of the paint colors we have in our house. I'm also giving you a rundown of how the paint colors look in our home, which is not necessarily how they look on the online swatches.
Of course, it's hard to read color through a computer screen and the best way to test paint is to actually paint two coats onto different parts of your wall and view it at different times of the day to see how it looks. Consider what time of day you're in the room the most to see how you like it at that time of day. If you don't want to put the color directly on the wall to test, you can use a posterboard, but it won't saturate the same and the texture will be different, which can affect the look. The paint can also look drastically different with the lights on or off, so you need to consider that too.
Below are the swatches of the main colors in our home and below that I'll show you photos of how the paint actually looks in our home when photographed with natural light and the inside lights off. Most of the photos are taken in the afternoon. If you want to see more photos of each room, click the 'room tour' link below each picture.
Whites can be so tricky and finding the 'perfect white' is a challenge because there are so many variations. Our paint, SW Divine White is definitely on the creamy side and not a stark, bright white. It's not yellow or beige, but it's definitely warmer than bright white, more off-white, as you can see compared to our white subway tile and marble counters.
All of the cabinets, moldings (except my office) and ceilings in our house are painted this warm, creamy hue.
Accessible Beige is as a creamy greige that, in our home, leans a little more on the beige than grey side. We have it throughout our home in the living room, kitchen, breakfast room, and in the upstairs hallway. It's a great neutral that complements just about any color scheme.
The dining room used to be Accessible Beige too, until I decided to freshen it up with a pale blue. Finding the perfect color proved more difficult than I originally thought and after testing out eight sample colors (including SW Sea Salt). But, because our 'white' is so creamy, Sea Salt didn't look as good as I thought it would here. We ended up going with Comfort Gray (lightened 75%), which isn't very gray at all.
This color makes the whole room feel light and airy, but definitely on the blue, almost aqua side and sometimes leans green. Below is a good picture of Divine White in the trim work below the painted wall. Again, you'll notice how the Divine White isn't as white as the white in the vase on the console table.
I decided to make our glass cabinets more interesting by painting the back wall SW Urbane Bronze and then adding white pitchers and dishes to make them pop against the dark background. Urbane Bronze is a deep, dark grey with dark brown undertones, but in my house it leans more grey.
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To keep the look consistent in our first floor and because I'm so fond of this color, I also painted the back of our media cabinet Urbane Bronze.
To keep the look consistent in our first floor and because I'm so fond of this color, I also painted the back of our media cabinet Urbane Bronze.
The door in the photo with the stripes and the doors in our upstairs hallway are painted SW Black Fox. They should have called it Brown Fox because it has so much brown in it, especially when you just have the first coat on. The color deepens with the second coat and ultimately looks more grey, but it's still very warm with a brown tint.
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The door in the photo with the stripes and the doors in our upstairs hallway are painted SW Black Fox. They should have called it Brown Fox because it has so much brown in it, especially when you just have the first coat on. The color deepens with the second coat and ultimately looks more grey, but it's still very warm with a brown tint.
The door in the photo with the stripes and the doors in our upstairs hallway are painted SW Black Fox. They should have called it Brown Fox because it has so much brown in it, especially when you just have the first coat on. The color deepens with the second coat and ultimately looks more grey, but it's still very warm with a brown tint.
At last, the search for a perfect true gray is over! In our home at least, SW Anew Gray looks like grey without being purple, blue or pink. If anything it has a taupy-hue, but it's definitely gray and so, so pretty! We have this color in our master bedroom, adjoining sitting room and master bath.
Before James' room was turned into a nursery, we gave his walls a brilliant pop of blue with Benjamin Moore Indi-Go-Go and the ceiling a pale blue, Sherwin-Williams Honest Blue. Indi-Go-Go is dark blue, but not quite navy and honest blue is a soft, light blue.
That big boy room sure looks different now, with the addition of built-in bookshelves and bench seat that I designed and had a cabinet maker build, and since it's been decorated for a baby girl's nursery!
The gray in the stripes and on the top half of the walls is SW Agreeable Gray which leans on the light blue side. Here, because the cabinets, trim, beadboard and white stripes are all Divine White, crisp white furniture tended to make that paint color look dingy, which is why we opted for grey furniture. You can see how the pros got perfect stripes on the ceiling here.
The gray in the stripes and on the top half of the walls is SW Agreeable Gray which leans on the light blue side. Here, because the cabinets, trim, beadboard and white stripes are all Divine White, crisp white furniture tended to make that paint color look dingy, which is why we opted for grey furniture. You can see how the pros got perfect stripes on the ceiling here.
When we redid my office, I knew I wanted to paint the trim a contrasting color and make a bold statement against the white walls and ceiling, so we opted for Lichen by Farrow & Ball in a high gloss. The color is the most gorgeous creamy, olivey green. It's soothing and so super shiney in that high gloss finish.
Finally, we most recently painted our playroom/media room Sherwin-Williams Iron Ore, an almost-black, charcoal color. Unfortunately, this room is difficult to photograph since it only gets partial natural light on one side and the rest is illuminated with artificial light. I think you can get the gist of what it look like on the right side of the back wall though.
I better wrap this up - we gotta get to school! Wish us luck!! __________________
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