Thursday, November 25, 2010

Mimosa or Hibiscus?

We had our first report cards and parent teacher interviews this week.  Everything was good and I'm so proud of how well the kids have settled into school.  The only little blip was Tristan: "Tristan sometimes has trouble focusing in small and large group activities.  He can do the work but he likes to socialize."  Welcome to every report card I ever had!

Anyway, what I really wanted to talk about today is how picking paint colours for the basement is stressing me out.  Remember how I said I wanted a citron-y green?  For the first time ever Benjamin Moore has let me down.  But I did find one, it's called Mimosa and it's by Martha Stewart for Home Depot.  It's shocking.  It's vibrant.  It's bold.  It's exactly what I want.  I think.  I don't know if I'm gutsy enough to take the plunge.  I think with all the black and white it will look amazing but what if I hate it?  What if I only think it will be great but really it will be a big hot yellow mess and make our whole basement will look a flu-sick version of itself?  It's all well and good to say it's just paint you can always repaint it but the whole point of having someone paint our basement is SO I DON'T HAVE TO DO IT! I am not one of those people who finds their bliss in a paint roller.  My painting bliss only goes as far as opening the can of paint and pouring out the liquid loveliness.  What if I hate it???

I think with a colour like Mimosa painting a test strip still isn't enough to get a good idea of how it will look overall.  I tried to take a picture of it so you could weigh in but, bah, that was a waste of time. I can't get it to translate well from chip to camera.  So. What should I do? Risky and possibly what I really want and equally possibly a total mess? or safe and "fine"? (Can I just say that being chronically indecisive is really not an asset?)

What would you do?

6 comments:

  1. Take natural light into consideration... recently we painted the baby's room a beautiful sunny yellow (on the chip) and it turned out to look like baby poop smeared on the walls. I kept imagining that it would be okay... we let it sit and looked at it through a lot of different light from the time of day. Still, gross. So we repainted a much lighter version and got the results we were looking for in the first place.
    Maybe in a darker space a lighter shade will look darker? Like, if you love this particular colour, but are unsure of how it will look, maybe a lighter shade will give you the desired effect. Does this make sense? I'm going to go google that paint colour.

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  2. Okay I looked... take the plunge. If you don't like it after the first coat you can always get them to change it (while you still have interior painters at your command.)

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  3. I agree with Billijean. Take the plunge. But before you do that paint one part of the wall and see how it looks throughout the day and paired with your favorite fabrics. If you don't like it after the painter has done wall/one coat get them to change it. You never know until you actually put it up on the wall. Good Luck!

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  4. Oh, and Journee got the same kind of report. She's does well in all her subjects but likes a little coffee talk now and then and again and again...

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  5. Love the Martha Stewart line. I've bought her paint before, and it's great. I'm using her 'schoolhouse slate' colour to paint some furniture right now actually.

    I say go for bold. It's a basement, after all. Where else can you go that bright and fun with colours?

    Plunge, plunge, plunge!

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  6. I say...

    Well, who cares what I say...I didn't know what a valence was until like a year ago, and don't even mention wall sconces!

    :0)

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