Pick a Paint, Any Paint

It’s Only Paint!

Yes! It’s paint-pickin’ time at Annabelle’s Place! So here’s the scoop on the paint scheme we chose for the house and why. But first, let’s have a chat about paint in general. Warren and I love paint and we love it because there are so many options and it’s temporary! Yes, temporary!

Sorry, got off on a tangent there. But really, it’s just paint and it can always be changed. In our case, we first had to strip off miles and miles of wallpaper to get to the painting stage and having just completed wall prep in our master bedroom, we were ready to pick some colors! Our last house in California had at least a dozen different paint colors throughout. We loved the craftsman/mission style at the time and designed the interior with that style in mind. For that reason, we selected warm earth tones throughout (except for the bright lemon yellow laundry room that we did just for fun!) This time around, we were wanting something different and unexpected for a mountain home. I mean come on, Annabelle’s Place with all of her Victorian charm was already unexpected in our mountain community, so why not take the interior to an unexpected place as well? So we decided to go with a cool color palette using bright blues and white woodwork/trim throughout.

Blue and White = Blue Mountain Skies

Okay and now a word about blue and white color schemes: they do not always need to equal coastal style! I love and miss the Pacific Ocean, a lot, but I can visit any time so it’s not like we were trying to bring the ocean to the mountains. You see, we live in Colorado and contrary to popular belief, we are not buried in snow and gloomy grey skies all winter. In fact, we have lots and lots of bright blue skies all year long.

The skies here are magnificent and so for me personally, the bright blues on our walls remind me of the bright blue skies we get to enjoy so often from all of the many windows we have in this house.

We chose to use three different coordinating blues all within the same family (ironically all named after ocean colors…I know!)

The blues were used in areas like the foyer (the only room without a lot of natural sunlight) where we wanted to make a bold statement and brighten up the space. Each of the bathrooms have the lightest blue in them and the living room, dining room, master bedroom, and both offices all have some variation of a blue accent wall. To keep some balance, we painted all of the main living spaces a neutral greige (is it grey or is it beige?) except for the kitchen which is white and the breakfast nook and guest bedroom which are a more greyish/bluish/greenish kind of color combination.

Slappin’ Some Color on the Walls

We first picked out samples and tried them out on different walls within each room to be sure we liked how they looked from different angles and with the different lighting throughout the day.

It was a great idea and helped to visualize tremendously but man, was I wishing we hadn’t painted so many sample spots when it came time to strip the wallpaper. Wherever we put paint on the wallpaper, it was much more difficult to remove! But oh well…we got our colors!

As exciting as it was to pull down the wallpaper in any given room, it wasn’t until the woodwork was painted a bright white and the colors went up on the walls, that the space started to really look and feel like progress!

So best advice is don’t be afraid of paint! If you don’t like it, it can always be covered up. And honestly, unless you are painting an entire house like we did, paint is a pretty inexpensive and rewarding change!

In Memory

On a sad note, it was exactly two years ago to this post when we lost our sweet Harley. She suddenly came down ill and within just a week and a half, we had to let her go. Harley was the best dog and we were so blessed to have her in our family for 10 years.

It seems strange that she was only here in the new house for less than two months. What I wouldn’t give to see her bounding down the stairs today! We miss you Harley Girl; just keep swimming up there sweet girl!

We’re getting back to flooring in our next post so be sure to come back for that exciting adventure! {Shelley}