Decisions, Decisions

I apologize to my readers for the long 5-day break from blogging. My world was interrupted by wonderful family time, which included 2 days off of work (and 5 days off of house-related work), and I found little to no time on the PC for blog-posting.

But now it's back to the grind, and after being away from the house for a few days, I can honestly say our new house felt like "home" when we walked back through the doors last night. I also think that being away from the house for a few days gave me a fresh perspective on the projects we've accomplished so far - I'm very happy with the choices we've made - AND it made me see how much still needs to be done.

That's when I sat down on the couch and burst into tears.

Just kidding.

Actually, it made me more excited to pick up a paintbrush again and keep on truckin'... I even considered doing some painting shortly after we got home (9pm), but Joey discouraged me from starting something so late. So, I pouted for 2 minutes and then got over it and then unpacked and got ready for bed. I figured I could start more painting today.

But back to my "new perspective" as I entered the house - the project I thought a lot about over the long weekend was the dining room. Out of all the rooms in the house (and all the paint colors to choose from), I've been most indecisive about this particular room color. In the past, I've always planned my dining room around a traditional china-blue color as this suits my french-country-blue-and-yellow kitchen theme I've used and coordinates so well with the 3 sets of china I own (yes, 3).

But this house stopped me dead in my tracks from using blue in the dining room. Why? Because the dining room and living room are adjacent and open to one another. And if you recall from this post, the living room is a sage green. This presents a slight problem. While I don't feel the 2 rooms have to completely match or even "go together" in terms of style/decor, I do feel like the 2 paint colors need to at least compliment each other. Otherwise the entire space will feel chopped up and unplanned.

So, I had determined that I would go with a fairly neutral color in the dining room - light brown/beige/taupe - it would look fine next to the green living room, but still allow for blue accent colors with all of my dining room decor.

But have you looked at the bazillion options for "beige" in the paint department? Apparently finding the perfect beige is like finding a needle in a haystack. There's light beige. There's dark beige. There's brown-beige. There's gray-beige. Ugh.

Given that all the paint colors in the house so far are from Lowe's Waverly HOME Classics or Eddie Bauer HOME collections, I started looking in these lines of paint first - thinking that would help me. I finally settled on a wall color called "Colonial Beige" by Waverly HOME Classics and was determined not to change my mind. I also decided that I would paint the ceiling a VERY light blue to coordinate with the blue decor - after all the ceiling is the 5th wall - and the ceiling can't be seen from the living room anyway. Here's an example of what this paint combo would look like in a dining room...

Pretty, no? But now that I've sat on this decision for a couple of months, I'm starting to second-guess myself. I feel like this particular beige is too dark for the space. I'm afraid it will make the dining room feel closed in rather than open and inviting. And then to make matters worse, I came across this picture in an article I was reading...

...which was really all about the curtains in the pic, but the first thing I noticed was the paint color in the background. It is a lighter color than what I picked out and slightly grayer beige than I chose. But it looks so nice with those blue and white curtains next to them. And I think the lighter color will make the dining space feel airier and still look nice next to the living room. So, I've just convinced myself that I'm switching the paint color.

Now comes the problem - FINDING that color in a real paint swatch.

Here is a wall color I found on Lowe's site. It's called "Woodlawn Snow". Do you think it's a similar color to the picture above? Or is it too gray?

Here is a side-by-side comparison for good measure...

What do you think? Do you like the first beige color best? Or the second beige color better?

Feedback is gift. I embrace it. Don't be afraid to speak your mind!

Good thing the Dining Room is one of the LAST rooms we're painting. By the time we get to it, I sure hope I've found the forever-perfect paint color that I want!