Picking a light blue paint color for our guest bedroom
THE FARMHOUSE
This weekend we painted our guest bedroom! We’ve never shared this room before, mostly because it’s the place furniture goes to die in our house, but it’s the bedroom right off the front entry. This room has been low on the priority list for the last five years, but Garrett just ordered a Peloton and we realized it was the only good spot for it. I’ve been wanting to refresh the room since we moved in and with the addition of exercise an space, it finally seemed like the time to paint and pull up carpets. Today I thought I’d share a little inspiration for the wall color and a few tricks I use for selecting paint since it’s really not my forte. Let’s get into it…
The color is Farrow & Ball’s Light Blue (color matched by SW) and I love it! It’s cozy but not too dark and just really pretty. It definitely reads a little green and a little grayed out and feels perfectly historic.
And surprise of all surprises, I got the color right on the first time this time around without a sample (remember when it took me 4 times to get the Poplar Cottage cabinets right?!). Getting the right color is worth the effort in my book, no matter how many samples or repaints it takes. But it is not my forte. Color selection is hard for me and it’s daunting and that’s why you see so much white in our houses. But of course we’ve remodeled 8 houses over the years and I am a home blogger after all, so picking colors is something I’ve had to do from time-to-time despite not being great at it. And today I wanted to share my tricks with you. You can call these paint-selecting-tricks-for-folks-that-aren’t-great-at-selecting-color ;)
Here we go…
Have a general color in mind
The most successful paint jobs, at least for us, start with me having a color in mind. For this room it was a light or mid-tone blue. And ideally there are some inspiration images involved, which we’ll get to in a second. Whenever I don’t have a color in mind, that’s when we have to repaint and repaint…
Look at a paint deck/color card
I highly recommend owning a paint deck or two. We have Benjamin Moore’s and Farrow and Ball’s and it means I can look at colors at home in the actual room we’re going to paint before heading to the paint store. I like BM’s paint colors - their historic section is a great spot to start - but my favorite right now is Farrow & Ball because their colors are all gorgeous and they have a small selection on their color card. When picking colors is hard for you (talking about myself here), limited selection is a good thing! So F&B is my first stop if I don’t already have something else in mind. BTW you can get their color card for free from F&B’s website here. Sherwin Williams has many of the F&B color formulas on file (and other brands too), so they can usually match them at the front desk for you. Arguably color matches are not exact, but they’re usually close.
Save inspiration
Whenever I come across a room I love the color of, I save them to a Pinterest Board called “paint and color”. And if I can dig up the actual paint color of the room, I add it to the description of the Pin (btw I don’t ask designers for colors since that’s something clients pay them for and they understandably don’t want to give sources away for free, but I do scroll through comments or articles to see if it’s in there). Taking the time to save color inspiration whenever you find it, means you’ll have that info at the ready when it comes time to select a paint color of your own.
Here are three rooms painted in F&B Light Blue that I had saved on Pinterest (originally found on Instagram) and served as inspiration for our guest bedroom:
Of course just because you like a paint color on someone else’s wall DOES NOT mean it will look good on your wall (and just look how different those three inspiration rooms look)! But inspiration and using a paint deck are good places to start before you…
Get Samples!
One more tip…paint samples on your walls! It’s worth the added trip to the paint store. Especially when picking colors is not your forte and you’re working from online inspiration and teeny tiny color samples on cards. Unfortunately our Sherwin Williams store was out of samples this time (I’ve heard it’s due to a warehouse in Texas freezing last winter) so we had to bite the bullet and go for a whole gallon. It was a gamble that paid off this time, but it doesn’t always. I’ll opt for samples whenever I can!
BTW I’ve heard there’s lots of paint shortages in the US this year, but F&B is located in the UK and apparently does have samples to ship. I’d actually love to use their paint sometime instead of getting it color matched, but I never seem to plan ahead enough to order samples.
Like all things, I’ve found the more non-white paint colors I look at, appreciate, and try, the better I get at picking them. Any tips or tricks you use for picking paint colors?
