A Tale of Two Beiges...

So, now that I have my tax situation figured out for 2011, it's time that I can finally think about having the house painted. My plan is to have this done once, right, and so that when I get ready to sell this place in ten years, the paint will still look good. So except for my bedroom which is BRAVE PURPLE (Sherwin Williams' color name), the rest of the house is going to be a neutral color.

I simply cannot do white because I've lived in apartments the past 10 years and can't stand looking at white walls any more. My brother & sister in law in OH have a dark beige all throughout their house and I really like it. It's neutral yet not boring and with white trim, it looks very classy. So after picking up several paint swatches last week of beiges, I narrowed it down to two shades - "familiar beige" and "practical beige". What boring names! What does it say about me that I'm about to paint my house practical beige!? At least I have brave purple in one room to redeem me! :)

Friday night I went throughout all the rooms that will be painted the beige in question and painted a spot of each color. As you can see, they are nearly indistinguishable. You can't get a good sense from the walls/hall (top) picture due to the current wall (yuck) colors. But the one taken in the bathroom with the pale greyish blue walls you get the best sense of the new paint candidates. And while you can hardly tell them apart, I'm going with the bottom one, which is the practical beige.

Now, probably tomorrow, I'll call the painter and hopefully soon the fun will be started! He and his crew will be refinishing the walls, too (they have an outdated crow's foot texture on them and the painter told me for resale, flat smooth walls would be better), which will be nice. I'm sure it will increase the residue/dust to be cleaned afterwards, but it will be worth it.

Then I'll finally be able to hang things up on the wall and really start to settle in and feel even more at home. It has, after all, been more than 4 months, so I probably should finish unpacking at some point! :)