Living room do over

Our living room has long vexed me on the proper layout, (its 12′ wide by 19.5′ long) and I’ll admit while snowed in this past February I got pretty caught up in the whole white slipcover, sea grass rugs, and Belgian décor scene. Joni from Cote de Texas has long been one of my favorite blogs, so it seemed only natural I lean in that direction with redecorating our living room.   I really do love all those neutrals, but honestly, I’m a color-aholic at heart. Looking back at this picture, it seems I was already toying with neutrals – the walls, the loveseat and even the slipper chairs were neutral and yeah, blah.

I did an online phone consultation with Maria Killam of Colour Me Happy, who convinced me to be true to my real self, and not become swayed by what I was seeing in the pages of design magazines and the blogs I was reading. So using Maria’s suggestions, I began my wall color odyssey for the living room.

I could not possibly imagine where I ended up color wise or even design wise. To find the perfect color for the living rooms walls, I began a multi-trip adventure to Home Depot, Lowes, Sherwin Williams and Benjamin Moore dealers. I purchased no less than 10 – 15 sample paint cans and proceeded to paint wide swaths of various shades of greenish and gold cubes around the room. This occurred over the course of several weeks and it was not a pretty sight. I also did not invite any friends or family over during this time, because frankly, it seemed as if a cubist graffiti artist had taken up residence. This cubism did enable me to finally find the right color for the living room by viewing all the colors on the walls at different times of day, and in varying lighting. I am pleased to report my final selection was: Benjamin Moore’s Golden Delicious (390). Its a VERY bright yellow green, almost an acid green. Sounds wonderful, doesn’t it? But it is. The ceiling was painted at 50% strength of the walls, which is Cypress Grove (388).