painting on my mind

If you remember, I showed you these paint samples and what my dining room looked like. If you weren't around that far back, just check these photos out.



This picture also shows the yellow wall I had in the living room and brown leather furniture that I had in there too. That leather set is now in my den and we moved a beige sofa and love seat into the living room. After this furniture musical chairs was over, the yellow didn't look right with the beige sofa and we still had not painted the dining room.

So once school was out, and we got back from our Florida vacation, I knew I needed to get serious about what I was going to do with that room. And even though I LOOOOOVE paint samples, I am not decisive about picking out paint. So wishy washy. I know what I like and don't like, but the exact shade of something is hard to pick out. So, I checked out a couple colors that the Nester recommended and Emily even came over and looked at my rooms, and then I still didn't know what I wanted to do. But I had loved the color that Emily had at her Sophie Marie house, and I went with that color: restrained gold.

Restrained Gold is a Sherwin Williams color. So I hotfooted it over to Sherwin Williams to get the paint. Now, I am usually a Behr paint girl. I am pretty loyal, because their paint is pretty think and generally covers in one coat. But, thinking I would want to get the color exactly right, I went to the fancy Sherwin Williams store and paid top dollar for two gallons of paint. Cashmere paint, it was called.

It was horrible.

It was like water. It was so thin and drippy and you could see every brush stroke. I only trimmed around one door before I was yelling at the paint.

Enter my husband.

He looked at the cans and saw that it was not Behr paint, and his look said "that's your first problem." But he did not comment on that. He said "Let's take it back." I told him that paint stores don't take back tinted paint, and so he put the phone in my hand and made me call the store. They thought maybe something was wrong with the paint, and could I bring it in?

Now, normally, I would have sucked it up and just kept painting. Not wanting to ruffle feathers, or anything. But I had two rooms and a foyer to paint with this color and I had paid SO much money for this paint. So we jumped in the car and headed to the store.

Where the nice man tried to convince me that paint is like that.

Where the nice man showed me what he thought was thicker paint.

Where the nice man gave me my money back.

Charlie and I headed to Home Depot with my swatch in hand. I asked my favorite paint man Larry about the color and if they would be able to match it. I had used the little matching matching while we were waiting, and the color wasn't right. But he looked right at the swatch and said they had that paint recipe in the computer becuase it was so popular, but he would make up one gallon and we would dry it and match it, then we would mix the second gallon.

It was perfect.

So I went home and painted the dining room. And today I painted the living room. But I am not gonna show you what it looks like yet, because all the furniture is still shoved in the middle of the room and I haven't hung anything up yet. I will share photos soon, don't you worry.

And, buy Behr paint.