Brooklyn Limestone

The Power of Paint, Part 1

Its really amazing that after all the time, money and effort spent on renovating, the simple act adding paint really has so much of an impact. The color on the walls make the whole house seem more like a home than a war zone.

Nearly all the painting is finished so at least the anxiety of choosing colors is behind me. Some of the choices were good ones and I love them, some of them I'm not quite so enamored with and one (which is upstairs and Ill mention in part 2 of this post) has to be repainted because its so awful.

Here is a look at the parlor floor which has our living room, a little middle room that I'm told should be called the "music room", a joint kitchen and dining space, a bathroom and the hallway. Since its all pretty much open to each other, I tried to keep a consistent color scheme without doing the same colors in every room. I did decide to keep the trim (cream) and the ceilings (china white) in the entire house the same color for consistency.


The hallway got a color called "Abalone" which is a light grey. Living Room/Music room got one shade darker called "Silver Fox' which is a warm gray that changes with the time of day. Sometimes it looks quite grey and sometimes it looks a little brown and sometimes it looks a little purple. I absolutely love how these turned out and I'm so happy I didn't go with beige.


The kitchen/dining area essentially got a cream on cream treatment. Its a little on the boring side. Okay, a lot on the boring side. I don't really love it for that reason. But knowing that a lot of other finishes (cabinets, appliances, countertops, dining room table, chairs, stools, backsplash tiles) are going into the room convinced me to go safe. I'm hoping I'll like it more when the kitchen is completed. If not, I can always add an accent color to the far wall. But for a shot of color that no one will see, the inside of the closets are painted a bright teal blue called "waterfall".


The bathroom is looking very dark because the lights aren't installed but the color on the walls is a pale gray green called "Owl Grey". Its a nice compliment to all the white and marble.
Picking colors is really difficult. Are these the most perfect colors? Probably not. That said, I'm really pleased with how it all worked out on this floor. I think its contemporary without being too modern and highlights some of the nice features of the molding.