we're painting our house

[bostonsmama]

and i need help w/colors!!! i want a light color, to make the house look bigger.......i should take a pic of it and post it on here so you can actually see it! maybe i'll do that in a bit. anyways, what color combo's do you all like? i was thinking about a light yellow with maybe a cream instead of white accent color? i saw a pic of one, and it looked surprisingly nice :)

[Irene]

:mrgreen we are painting our house! well, last weekend and then this weekend :) it is yellow with white trim. it was brown with white trim.... and it definitly makes the house look bigger! :)

[joyfulmomof2]

yay!!! we don't have a house, so we cannot paint it. lol but Irene your house sounds like it is beautiful!!! i think the light yellow and cream would be beautiful. two of my other favs are like a light taupe color with cream trim.

[Katigre]

We just finished painting our whole house (we moved in last fall), and the most helpful thing in choosing colors was this: Benjamin Moore Color Program (http://www.benjaminmoore.com/wrapper_pcv.asp?L=owner&K=intproj&N=intproj). It's $10 and you download it to your computer, and you can upload photos of the rooms in your home and then 'color' them with different BM paint colors on the screen (we didn't even end up using BM paint, but it was helpful to use their program, then go to the store and pick out paint chips that looked similar to what i liked on the screen). I'm not always good at imagining how things will look in my head, so this program took care of that weakness for me :).

I would say stay away from yellows--they are difficult to find a nice shade of and if you get the wrong shade they look sickly. Maybe go for a cream instead? (I say this b/c originally i wanted to go with a light yellow and my dad who's an architect and does a lot of interior design explained that to me, and i 'm so glad i went with cream instead).

Here's our house, with before and afters (we used Home Depot's Behr paint and were happy with it. The only thing i would change is not to get such a bright white trim, though i guess it worked out since it matches the vinyl window trim and our front door). I'm reposting this from my blog so it might be long, i'm sorry!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Living Room/Dining Area (the photos take you clockwise around the room)
BEFORE: Mismatched trim colors, blue graffitti speckle paint
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v452/Champagnepunch/house/livingroom2.jpg

AFTER: White trim, Bone white walls, Spice Red accent wall
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v452/Champagnepunch/house/Picture040.jpg

BEFORE:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v452/Champagnepunch/house/kitchen4.jpg

AFTER:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v452/Champagnepunch/house/Picture030.jpg

BEFORE:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v452/Champagnepunch/house/livingroom1.jpg

AFTER:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v452/Champagnepunch/house/Picture033.jpg
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Kitchen The wall color is a dark green with white trim. When we moved in it was grease-covered country apple print wallpaper.

Before: Dingy walls, grease stained ceiling, weird pinky-white trim, disgustingly filthy ceiling fan:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v452/Champagnepunch/house/kitchen32.jpg

After: Deep Basil Green and white (including the ceiling and a new ceiling fan)--the room feels so fresh and clean.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v452/Champagnepunch/house/c7ebe4ac.jpg

Before: Remnants of old wallpaper, super-scary pantry (the place the bugs came from), filthy ceiling (that's right, the ceiling isn't that weird dingy color b/c of shadow--it's from grime and grease buildup from previous owners)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v452/Champagnepunch/house/P1010349.jpg

After: No more greasy walls or ceiling, pantry is fresh painted and all new and clean. I am no longer scared of it and happily store our food there :). The pantry door got put back on this afternoon.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v452/Champagnepunch/house/9d4d4a78.jpg

Before: I shrunk this photo too much by mistake :p
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v452/Champagnepunch/house/P1010354.jpg

After: I love how our kitchen looks now :). We need to replace the old counters and sink still, but otherwise it's *done*..
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v452/Champagnepunch/house/cdddbef9.jpg
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

1st bedroom (our room)

Before: Speckled blue-green walls, peeling paint (hidden in this pick), tons of nail holes in the wall, brown closet
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v452/Champagnepunch/house/P1010341.jpg

(Randomly small photo)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v452/Champagnepunch/house/bedroom12.jpg

After: Smoky grey peacefullness (i admit that i only make the bed when i take photos or someone comes over).
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v452/Champagnepunch/house/Picture004.jpg

No more nail holes and a newly painted closet (SO glad we paid our painter to do that)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v452/Champagnepunch/house/Picture005.jpg
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Office/2nd bedroom

Before (tannish textured paint design on the walls):
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v452/Champagnepunch/house/MonaLisa.jpg

After: Light green (The Mona Lisa closet curtain matches the walls now):
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v452/Champagnepunch/house/P1010030.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v452/Champagnepunch/house/P1010027.jpg
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hope this is helpful to you!

[joyfulmomof2]

it looks awesome tsunadae!!! i need to do the same thing, but just can't bring myself to since we are renting. our landlord will pay for the paint, but we still have to do all the work. lol

[OnlyBelieve]

We are painting too....sloooowly. Dh wants all white, and yes, he means white. I have already talked him into a very light blue for ds's room and a very light lavender for dd's. Maybe by the time we get to our room, I might be able to talk him into some spicy color!!

[Irene]

Oh Im sorry I thought you meant exterior :shifty

we do have a yellow entry and I agree you do have to be careful of yellows- but ours is awesome! :tu we get tons of compliments on it :) every room in our house is a different color too... but im not gonna do pics....

[bostonsmama]

i *do* mean exterior!! we're painting the outside of our house..........will that benjamin moore program still work for the outside? the taupe w/cream is always appealing too, but its already kind of a light brown, so for some reason i want to get away from it, then we will only have one little room (the foyer) that we havent painted since we bought our house! if anyone else has any color ideas for the outside let me know!

[Katigre]

It works with any type of photo so yes :). Oops--so sorry i misunderstood interior/exterior! I don't think yellow is much of a problem for exterior b/c of the natural sunlight (vs. artificial light indoors). In fact, a sunny yellow house with white trim sounds great!