My Dream Office: Selecting Paint
It’s been just over a year since I began the guest bedroom/dream office transformation and though it’s taken longer than anticipated to complete it’s truly become everything I’d hoped for. Sometimes life gets in the way and projects are postponed but it’s important to stick with it, not give up and keep the vision alive.
The first step in re-decorating the space was choosing a paint colour. Sarah Richardson’s advice for selecting paint are rules to live by, in that picking a jumping off point is key whether it be from a main fabric, wallpaper or accessories that you love. It’s also important to keep fixed elements and finishes neutral so that you can bring the room to life with accents and accessories. Long term this helps to avoid the hassle of repainting as it’s far less expensive to buy a new throw pillow than it is to re-design an entire space. Strange as it may be, my jumping off point was my entire house because with this being the last room to be painted it was important to me to keep colour cohesion throughout. Since the paint in my home revolves around variations of taupe and grey I knew what family of colours to turn to. I wanted the end result to be soft and chic, thus a pale grey seemed like the perfect match. My house painter (and friend) suggested I accent the window wall a darker, complimentary shade of grey to add an extra pop and that’s exactly what we did.
In the end I narrowed it down to three shades of grey with complimentary accent and after careful consideration chose the winning duo. Check out the swatches that were in the running and the winners below, along with the thought process behind each choice.
At first glance “Blue Springs” looks quite grey, but when placed next to white walls and compared to the other paint contenders it began to look dusty blue. Plus, “Steel Wool” was too dark for the desired look.
This duo was almost the winner until I compared “Silvery Blue” to the winning swatch. Much like the previous colour it began looking too blue when I very much wanted grey. The accent wall shade “Dior Gray” had me at the name but wasn’t meant to be.
The winners! The soft grey of “Silvery Moon” paired with the deeper tones in “Pigeon Gray” were the perfect combination for my drab guest room turned dream office.