Oh, please…not another angsty post about paint.
(In your whiniest voice) I’m Em, my life is so hard. I can’t choose paint.
Well NOT TODAY!
I painted three rooms in one week…using Benjamin Moore’s “it color” Revere Pewter.
Yeah, I know…how original …so trend setting! HA!
Let’s be honest, I am a trend KILLER! So, my apologies to design enthusiasts everywhere.
I’m not a fan of following trends. Don’t get me wrong, I LOOOOVE all those rooms I see posted and pinned everywhere.
Revere Pewter, Agreeable Gray, Owl Gray, Mindful Gray, MyFaceInTheMorning Gray… (okay I made that last one up) but there is no shortage of gray rooms on Pinterest or Instagram.
But I didn’t want to use any of those colors.
WHY?
Because I am a trend killer…or perhaps its just that trends come to me to die. When I paint things red, the world moves on to blue… I go blue, then orange becomes a thing. If I’m looking for cheetah shoes, the fashion bloggers are wearing gingham.
I am the short skirt in a sea of maxi-dresses. The cabbage rose print among the ikat and suzani.
Go ahead, blame me (or credit me if you want) for the death of dusty rose and mallard green. I killed them in 1988 when I put them in our first house.
Fast forward thirty years (yikes) later, we painted much of our current house the deep brownish/greenish gray based of Valspar’s Seine. (I got lucky on that one and picked it before “mushroom” gray became a thing!)
To date, however, the living room and dining room were still cloaked in all their mustardy glory (even though we updated the furniture in new colors).
Knowing our penchant for bickering difficulty choosing colors we both like, I went back to see Amanda (the decorator from the furniture store). She helped us choose the furniture and fabric for our living room…so, I thought she could recommend a good color that would play nicely with the rest of the house.
Her top two choices…Revere Pewter and Agreeable Gray (which look nothing in person like the chips in these photos).
Somewhat unenthused, I slopped a sample on the Living Room wall, and thought it looked like a dirty white. Not a fan.
I went back to the paint store (where you are greeted with an entire wall of their most popular color…Revere Pewter) for two other samples, played amateur colorist and mixed a few, tried them in different light,
and of those… we selected….can you believe… Revere Pewter as the “least objectionable.”
Yes, Revere Pewter…among the trendiest of the soon-to-be former trend-setting paint colors.
Recognizing that I know nothing about anything, I accepted our decision and dove into the pewter pool head first, and–to borrow the single most overused sentence in DIY bloggerdom: “I absolutely love the result.”
Um, surprisingly, I actually DO.
After I painted the living room (“Goodbye, mustard, old pal!”), it felt crisp and clean and light and airy. ANYTIME I can use the word “clean” to describe something in this house is a good day.
So I went back for three more gallons, and painted the dining room and the office.
Then the sump pump broke. (Thank you, fake Spring!) My son discovered it while sloshing his way to the laundry area.
SO, as long as the basement carpet is now torn up Mr. suggested we also take our newly beloved color to those walls and change things down there as well (I HATE when he makes sense.)
THIS was NOT on my list!!! (Do I even have a list?)
Bear would also like it for her room….and there’s talk of painting the upstairs bathrooms as well.
Innovative? Mmm, I guess not… But getting as many checkmarks in the “done” column as possible (especially while our Spring weather still looks like THIS) is definitely worth the sacrifice to me!
And I really do love the color (or lack of it). It finally looks like our first floor colors flow and are actually purposeful.
I’m excited to put the rooms back together with some updated furnishings and accessories and then…
That should now, officially, conclude the gray paint trend.
Ha! What a great post to begin my day with. Sitting in my bedroom surrounded by four off-mustard walls a la 2008. Kind of a gray poupon or desean going on over here rather than a French’s. But whatever it is, it is too dark to allow me to read anything, do any kind of needlework or crafts, or match colors in my clothing.
Your Revere Pewter walls look so fresh! That color seems like a fancy neutral that goes with everything. I like it paired with the browns in the wood of your furniture and that camel color in the pot on the floor beside your dresser. Very pretty choice. And if it now goes promptly out of style, all the better! Your home will be unique! I loved dusty rose and a light peach that was popular in the 90s. Carpeted my whole first house in peach. Yes, I did!!
Did you make the window treatment featured in the photos? That fabric is so pretty! So classy. And perfect with the pewter. Let the trendsetters move onto some other color…pink with purple polka dots…you have a winning color on your walls!!
Hi, Leslie! You’re a mustard too? I love that color! If we hadn’t switched out the furniture to something that no longer matches, I would probably have it for another several years. From that same paint collection we also chose a darkish blue for our MBR (circa 2007) so I totally feel you on not being able to see anything without the shades drawn or lights on. I often say that Mr. is part vampire, loves a dark room! And he also loves changing paint colors…I just can’t keep up with him!
The curtain in the pictures is a mock up I play around with while I’m still wrestling with decisions about how I will make them. TBT, it was no help at all in choosing the color to my untrained eyes.
The camel pot…Hold on to your bloomers…is strategically placed to cover one of Kelly’s puke stains. That dog LOOOVES to throw up in the front room! No professional has been able to remove it…so it’s become a joke about what we’ll use to hide it for each season. On the flip, it will be a sad, terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day when we are actually able to replace it… So, for now I’ll take the 85lbs of smoochable good over the bad 🙂
Looking forward to trying your lemon chicken recipe…YUM! And I adore your Little Letters! Thank you for your very nice words!
I love the color!! BTW, thanks for getting rid of the Mallard Green. I always disliked that color. And don’t you know that the house we purchased had this GREEN color throughout!! We also have been painting and your Revere Pewter looks like my SW Morning Fog. Depending on the time of day and amount of sunlight, it will look gray or bluish-gray. 🙂 I have always been a fan of gray walls and white trim–we had it in our first house. And I like coastal colors, so it suits me. We painted it in our kitchen, along with painting our cabinets white. And I don’t care about trends either, I know what I like and it just happens to be fashionable now—but I’ll still like it in 20 years. Because I’m not doing this again!!!
Oh, Tina! You’re talking my language! It isn’t the painting that bothers me…it’s the choosing and the taping and the redecorating and all the decision stress that seems to accompany it. Just thinking about it makes me want to go back to bed. I was surprised by how pretty the gray (fog, etc.) looks with our wood after all. Can’t believe I wasted all this time. Then again, it’s me I’m talking about, so yes I can!
Your colors sound beautiful and peaceful…and YOU sound like you’ve been very busy! We are toying with experimenting in the kitchen (ooh! That sounds BAD)…with paint and other changes. How is the paint holding up on your cabinets?
It’s not an easy task to pick out paint color—because every room can look different depending on the lighting. Maybe that’s why this grey is so popular—it has a fabulous blend of the blues and reds in it and doesn’t get weird??
My previous house I painted in grey, and when Rob moved in her thought it was lilac. Of course I realize that men have less cones and rods in their eyes (biological fact, not my opinion) so he certainly saw it WRONG!!! LOL…. trust me when I say this was a long standing joke, and still is!!
And you always know how to crack me up, Em!! The basement?? It’s always something, isn’t it? No wonder you don’t have time for much shopping…ha ha!!
XOXO
Jodie
http://www.jtouchofstyle.com
Exactly! Like the black/blue, white/gold dress 🙂 I lack “the eye.” 👁
I do usually get out to shop once a week…and survey the rest on-line…my real time problem is discipline-related (specifically, my connection/addiction to computer screens). That, and too much time thinking, less time acting.
Thank you for commenting!