Painting: Picking the Colour

July 18th, 2009 by jules

DSCI0045DSCI0044DSCI0043Not all painting we get to do in our lives is exactly Fine Art.  For instance, this weekend I am painting the garage door at my Mom’s house.

After all my years of painting and education, wouldn’t you know it, we picked the wrong shade of the colour.  The house is grey (or so we thought) but it has a tiny bit of siding near the roof.  The plan was to match the siding with the garage doors, then paint the front door in an accent colour.

We went to home depot, got a bunch of samples, poured over them, took them outside, contemplated and finally and carefully picked the colour.

As I finish the first coat, my shoulders slump.  Now the house looks beige…what is going on?  Doesn’t this kind of thing happen to people who only paint every 10 years or so?  This shouldn’t happen to me.  Not me, someone who paints at least weekly and has painted two full houses with a Purdy brush even, ne’er a roller to be used!  Well, it happened and it got me thinking, if I can make this mistake, what chance do others have of picking the right colours?  And the paint shops must be making a killing on people coming back for a new colour every time the one they chose isn’t quite right.

Moral:  Instead if spending the $50 on a gallon of paint that ends up being painted over, its worth paying the $50 to the local interior designer to come and consult regarding colours.  I know someone who did that, and at the time I thought it was a waste of money.  In that consult though, the designer helped her pick out colours for her entire main floor and they ALL worked out well.  Maybe when we are painting our homes they are just too familiar, just too close to home, and those outside eyes are needed.  It would save time and money to get it right the first time.

Tags:

Comments are closed.