Well, I am, but I am not a white-wall girl - I don't think I've ever bought a gallon of white wall paint.
Ever.
Okay, maybe once when we were renting and I was covering some hideous shade of apricot in the bathroom and white was a safe choice the landlord wouldn't mind me using.
And a garage or two.
But beyond that? Nope, never, no way, no how.
I love color. That can't be a surprise, right? I am a confessed Fiesta fiend, remember?
I've used every color of the rainbow except dark blue and purple to paint walls in one house or another. A range of pinks, reds, yellows, oranges, greens, light blues, and several "safe" neutral shades of taupe and gray have graced our walls over the years.In our current house, we have 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, 2 living areas, 2 eating areas, a bonus room and a utility room. At last count, our walls sport 3 shades of green, 2 shades of yellow, 1 shade of orange, 1 shade of pink and 1 shade of taupe.
Twelve rooms, nine colors. And some of them don't play well with others.
The house that nearly captured my heart was painted a toasty taupey color all the way through. Its soothing neutrality was bee-yoo-tee-ful and ultimately, was a huge selling point for me: it was move-in ready without anyone lifting a paintbrush.
The ultimate "THE" house has twelve rooms - pretty much the same as what we have now (they're just bigger and better arranged) but just six wall colors. And three of them flow and blend to transition nicely from entry to den/kitchen/eating area and into the sunroom. I'm leaving well enough alone in those rooms, and re-coloring only the bedrooms, dining room and bonus room (a bathroom will get a subtle do-over in a different shade of green soon after we move in.)
When I'm done, the house will have picked up a seventh color, but several of the rooms will use the same color: the bonus room and two bedrooms will share the master bathroom's taupe color; the dining room and swimmer girl's bedroom will share a rich mocha brown color. Her room will get a pop of frosty pink to up the score to seven colors.
I think as I get older, I'm starting to find a better balance between my love of color and my attraction to flow and congruity in a house; instead of using various shades of the same color for these rooms, I picked one taupe and one brown, and I'm making them do double or triple duty. There might be four *perfect* shades of taupe out there, one for each room, but I'm not going to agonize over the colors or mess with repeatedly cleaning out brushes and rollers to move from room to room. And long-term it's a nightmare to sort and store touchup paint when you've got several variations on the same theme sitting around in half-filled gallon paint cans.
And after we move out of our current house, it's getting the taupe treatment - every place except the kitchen and master bathroom, which are staying their same current shades of green. I hope it'll make some buyer's heart go pitter pat to have all that lovely flow of soothing congruence throughout.
Happy painting,
