Ellen: So what did you do this weekend? Because it certainly wasn’t finishing the blog post I jetted over to you 16 days ago.
Erin: Steve and I painted a room. Together.
Ellen: Forgiven! I love decorating. What do think of the color?
Erin: Um.
Ellen: Um, What!?!
Erin: I think it looks great, but Steve thinks it looks the same.
Ellen: The same as what? Cut to the chase.
Erin: It’s Wheeling Neutral, but Steve stands that is SameAsEveryOtherRoomInOurHouse.
Ellen: Well, Wheeling rolls off the tongue better but what color is that?
Erin: It’s a neutral.
Ellen: Yeah. But is it white, brown, gray, what? Is it warm or cool?
Erin: I DON”T KNOW!
Ellen: O-kay. So how do you pick colors, Ray Charles?
Erin: By name.
Ellen: So if the most perfect gray was named Breadmold and gray the color of corpse toes was named Dolphin Tail, you would pick?
Erin: Dolphin Tail.
Ellen: So maybe you should just graffiti the names on your walls since you are more English 101 than Design 200. What do you think of the color?
Erin: I love it! But Steve won’t stop rolling his eyes.
Ellen: Because?
Erin: Well, he thinks it looks like FamilyRoomSisal.
Ellen: Is it?
Erin: Oh no, it’s darker than Sisal. To which he said, “Well, then it’s DiningRoomHarvestWheat.”
Ellen: Oh.
Erin: But it’s not. It’s lighter than that. More like BackPorchEnglishToffee.
Ellen: (laughing) You have a problem.
Erin: Well, I have been burned before by color. You remember!!! The night before Deacon”s christening we painted the family room what I THOUGHT was a lovely shade of sage but turned out to be mint. The paint was still wet as my tears dripped into my paint bucket.
At least I didn't trot my mint green out into public. I kept that shizz behind closed doors.
Ellen: That WAS awful! But why don’t you just embrace that neutrals soothe you and take a can out of the garage. So your house matches.
Erin: Well, my friend Chris The Interior Designer mentioned Wheeling would really pop against my pretty new shelves.
Ellen: And you didn’t realize it was exactly the same color that you already had?
Erin: First of all, it’s not EXACTLY the same—it’s slightly darker. Second, and no judgment please, I didn’t even know what it was until I got to Home Depot. Chris KNOWS things. She’s a PROFESSIONAL. She is GIFTED! So I went with it, because my minty scars run deep.
Ellen: It’s time for a little “Know thine self.”
1) You are highly impressionable
2) You are not, as they say in the biz, “comfortable with a color wheel.”
3) You like the calm of neutrals
So just pick a shade already and stick with it. I’m tired of the hand-wringing.
Erin: Steve mentioned something like that.
Ellen: You have mentioned that Steve and I share some common traits.
Erin: Happy to have your opinions.
Ellen: You know what your house is, don’t you?
Erin: Fifty Shades of Neutral?
Ellen: Tan.
See the subtle difference? I DO!
hahaha! Love this post!
I get all kinds of Type A DIY in my house, and when you add that to pregnancy hormones, it’s some pretty intense crap. For example, when I was decorating Drew’s nursery, I had a custom paint color made that perfectly matched a color in his crib bedding. After painting his room, I realized that it was the EXACT same shade as the hallway, and I had half of a 5-gallon bucket of that stuff left in the garage. So I did what any pregnant woman would do in this situation… I cried and ate a doughnut. 🙂
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Love it! But seriously, doughnuts have healing powers, pregnant or not.
Oh, I love the color wheel! The brighter the better. We once painted our walls “mango gold” but showed the landlady “newborn” for pre-approval since she’d only approve more neutral colors, in the whole better to ask for forgiveness than permission vain. She was not pleased, but had to agree it “popped!” And half of the fun painted your walls is definitely discovering the asinine names people come up with. I want that job.
And, hey, if you’re afraid of color but a bit upset that you have 50 shades of neutral in your house, how about an accent wall? It’s low commitment and will break things up…
I love the deviousness of the paint switcheroo. Well played. My respect for you has grown even more.
The names are great. I told Erin that I wanted that job, too! My dining room and basement are Apple Crisp. So seriously, is that gold, red, beige (let’s face it, apple crisps do not pop with color)?
Nope, it’s a gorgeous orange that I love, love, love.
Ellen
So, my bedroom is yellow with an orange accent wall and black lacquer “trim” (3 pieces of plywood that form a “C” that makes up our open closet). We used to have a red zigzag shelf but the kids appropriated it for their books. We like color. I think the biggest impetus to buying a house was my desire to paint the walls. Apparently you can paint the walls of an apartment, but you need approval and I don’t know how many landlords would approve of orange.
Don’t feel bad about the mint. My house was a refab, and at the time, “celery” was the hottest color around, so my living room is “celery”, which is the same thing as mint. I left it because it is the most neutral color in the house now and I though people that visit us might appreciate not being bombarded by our rainbow parade. Neutrals can be very soothing.
My dining room and basement are orange! We have a sort of Mediterranean rainbow thing going on throughout our house, so I hear you. When we moved in, everything was pink. Pink that was not even painted all the way into the corners. I would have gladly embraced celery.
Most of the house is painted with Benjamin Moore paint that use to only be identified by numbers. I think I need to see what Erin’s reaction to that would be. Her head might explode. 🙂 Ellen
I love this!! I hate picking out paint. I want to just paint all the walls white. My husband can’t stand this. Last time we needed to paint the house, we moved instead.
PS – Tan is a wonderful shade of house.
PPS – I think we have Harvest Wheat. Something wheaty anyway.
Fun post!!
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You just cracked me up! Ellen
Because I’m out of my mind, I HAD to go check. It’s Cracked Wheat that we have. Or, as I call it, yellow.
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Cracked! I admire that you went and checked. You must be organized. My paint cans are in a pile with cobwebs, spiders, and probably hobbits living amongst them. Ellen
I couldn’t not know, you know? I’m weird like that. We’ve only lived here 2 years and we just recently had to repaint a spot in the dining room (Sweet Marzipan, in case you’re wondering. Also yellow as far as I’m concerned.) so it was easily accessible. There were still cobwebs and probably spiders and probably centipedes but I prefer not to think about those things!
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In our house, there’s a lot of Antique White or as Ellen and my family and her family call it, “yellow”. Ha! Erin
I can’t tell the difference by my Doc H would be able to tell. He is the one with the eye for detail in this relationship! He can tell when furniture pieces of a quarter inch off center. Once I told him he was crazy. The debate escalated. I broke out the tape measure. Sure as crap, he was dead on right. I hate it when he’s right. It’s a pet peeve of mine.
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I am picturing you with the tape measure! You should have done it when he left the room. Ellen
Three years ago when we moved to AK I took a chance on a non-neutral. For 3 years I’ve live with a golden arches yellow kitchen.
Do you want fries with that?
Oh, Bridget! That’s hilarious and sad and yet more proof that we are twin separated at birth! HA! Erin
I am afraid of colors too. Everything turns out to be antique white. I need you here to pick my co;ors!
One of these days I want to get hired to write the names of paint colors. I don’t who comes up with them, but some of them have no relationship to anything.
I really wouldn’t be surprised to find one called Breadmold.
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I’m awful, I want every wall to be white, white white!! And nothing on them! I can’t even explain it. I have milkshake in my bedroom (seriously, the wall color, get your mind out of the gutter) and something of the most pale pink in the living room and then white everywhere but the laundry room. I have the best bright pink in there and LOVE IT. You’d think I’d leave the one room that should be white- white! I blame this all on my mother’s tastes. Wallpaper. I can’t say any more than that. Wallpaper.
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I choose lipstick colours based on their names! LOL Glad I’m not alone. We are trying to choose internal house colours right now… it’s really hard to agree. Maybe I should just paint it while everyone is out and see if anybody notices it. And there is a WORLD of difference between those two colours!! 😉
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I love this! I made the mistake of sending the hubby to pick up paint when we did a remodel adding a powder room and bar to the first floor of our 1817 house – instead of a Hunter Green for the bar, he brought back Kelly Green, and instead of the wine color for the powder room, he bought lavender. Yeah, I’ve never seen a lavender wine ever. 🙂
And yes, I do see the subtle difference in those two shades in the picture! 🙂
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This cracked me up. I’ve been burned by sage that was mint. And mango that was pumpkin orange. And tan that turnout out to be pink. Thank goodness it is only paint. Having said that, finding the energy to re-paint is a huge pain in the rear.
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Ah, I love a good neutral, and another just like it, and another. But only becuase I am addicted to bright! happy! colors! in the rest of a room. Yeah, that’s the reason. (Stable Hay, that was the last yellowish/tan neutral I loved.)
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I feel Erin driving to Home Depot to pick up a gallon of Stable Hay right now. Sounds like a much better choice than Pig Sty Hay. Ellen
I hate when I think I’m going to be getting a big change and it’s no very noticeable. That goes for room color, hair color and weight loss after a day of eating really good.
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I hate it when I fork over $85 for highlights and I’m like, “Where are they?” And don’t get me started on the scale. I’ve run in 98 degree heat for two days and you would think that 10 lbs. would have melted off by now. 🙂 Ellen