Painting Samples

Choosing paint colors has been an experience in saying, "No, I don't think that's it" over and over.

We looked at paint chips in these ungainly and annoying pivoting decks until all the colors started looking alike.

We used the Benjamin Moore website to look at colors and to virtually paint rooms. That was a very helpful tool. Much easier to use than the paint decks, but impossible to trust the colors on the screen due to the amount of pickiness we were exercising.

We both selected maybes, we both rejected maybes. I did more rejecting than Jay who tried to wiggle out of this decision by saying he would be happy with whatever. Never did believe him because he kept coming back to find more colors.

When it was all over, the decision was firm and it was colors that Jay found that ruled the day. Fortunately, they were just what I was looking for when they came together with the floor, counter, and cabinet samples. We do work well together.

After all the selection angst, we decided we had to have bigger samples to examine. This decision is too important to make a mistake. Jay bought two foot by two foot pieces of drywall and primed them. We bought a sample pint of each color and used the garage at Hermitage to verify our vision.

The colors above are:

• Upper left and partially hidden, Sandy Brown, our main, basic wall color.
• Upper right, Soft Chamois, trim, chair rails, cove molding, ceilings.
• Pumpkin Spice, bet you can guess which one that is. Will be used on upper half of one wall in breakfast room and upper half of one wall in dining room.
• Kensignton Blue, the dark blue, will be used on the wall with the three transom windows behind our bed. Also considering the great room wall behind the television. Need to have questions answered on how that wraps into the half wall at the stairwell before deciding.
• Bayberry Blue, the lighter, brighter blue will be the outside of the front door and the outside trim around the door sidelights.

The picture below gives a better view of Sandy Brown.