Sounds a lot like our condo.
While I am proud of myself for embracing color in our home (a blue sofa! blue leather chair and cubes! and green dining chairs, too!)... let's be honest.
I'm a color wimp.
To put it more charitably, I just like colors that are more mellow and soothing, and shy away from colors that are more (for me) stress-inducing, like reds, oranges and yellows. Fair enough. But you're also unlikely to see any saturated or bright hues in our home.
Now that we have a blank canvas in our new home, I want to try something a little brighter, or a little more saturated. Something that takes some cajones. But naturally I don't want to try anything crazy in the main areas of our house. The two best candidates: my loft office, and the attic. (I know, I know. But if they go well, maybe we'll be open to something more bold elsewhere in the house.)
Baby steps.
Thanks to Sherwin Williams color visualizer, I got to try out a whole range of options without lifting a paintbrush.
Potential colors for the office, ranging from safe to scary:
(I would have listed the SW colors, but after comparing the on-screen results to the paint chips, the hues are actually pretty different, so I'm going based on color idea, and not actual color name.)
Okay, so that orange is so way out there for me that I laugh when I look at it. Yeah, not gonna happen. As you probably guessed from the preponderance of images, I'm leaning in the rich, jewel-tone turquoise or teal direction. I've been wanting to do something in that color family ever since seeing this stunning closet on Russet Street Reno.
Here's another use of a similarly rich blue, from Apartment Therapy, viewable on Pinterest. This one shows how delightful the rich blue would look against a white L-shaped desk, like the one I built for myself.
I first mentioned using a bold color like this for one of the closets in our condo, back before we knew for sure that we were buying a house in Truckee this year, though I was being a weenie for wanting to use bright color only in a small, hidden space. I think the turquoise is ready to come out of the closet.
As for the attic, I'd like to do something that feels very cozy, since there's no hiding the fact that it's a fairly small space, most of which has a low ceiling. You get up to the attic via a pulldown ladder, so a treehouse feel would be perfect. Or something that feels like you're sleeping under the stars. But, Mark is debating whether he wants to use the attic as his office, so demands nothing too (in his words) "depressing." (Dark apparently equals depressing.)
Some options for the attic, from safe to playful:
That last one is a little too Peewee's Playhouse, methinks, but any of the others could be great. I'd vote to go even darker, so we'll see if I get my way. I'm huge on office feng shui, though, so if Mark ends up working in the attic, he should be 100 percent happy with the wall color. Unless he wants red, of course.
Anybody else struggling with color, aspiring to go brighter but lacking the guts? Any tips for getting over the trepidation? I think I'm 99 percent of the way there, but can always use a friendly nudge!
If you enjoyed reading this post, why not subscribe or follow? And please comment!
xoxo,
Posts
As someone with a highly saturated color in her living room (basically the second-from-bottom picture above), go for it! It's horribly scary mid-process and there have been times where I've wished I went softer, but now I'm all-in. It's very friendly, like you're not alone in the room even when you are. Which is nice for when you're by yourself and adds another dimension when entertaining. Big fan.
ReplyDeleteIt's also forced me out of my almost-all-blue-with-small-green-accents decorating rut. I'm adding orange and brown and purple and all sorts of pretty stuff. And really surprising myself by liking orange. I definitely think I would have gone more girly-dainty if I hadn't started with such a bold color.
If I were picking your color? I'd go with the purple.
Can't wait to see what you pick! I'm a very neutral loving girl but yet also love bright rainbow-y colors. We moved into a townhouse with an orange wall and I like it :) Our bedroom is the color of the 5th pic up and it looks good with all my boring white/beige/gray neutrals.
ReplyDeleteI am more of a blue girl and so are with you. I think it is so interesting how the colors we choose often match other color choices in our life. I very much wear the same colors I decorate with in my home {mostly blues, grays, black and white} and yet in my home and wardrobe I have been embracing other colors lately. My wedding was also the same colors in our home which makes hanging them up work so well with our decor. I say embrace those colors you love!
ReplyDeleteI love those deep blues for your loft office; not so sure about the attic but it will probably be easier once you know how the space will be used.
ReplyDeleteApologies for my long absence... things have been crazy (all self-inflicted, of course!)
That's a cute little room! Our bedroom is cosy (read - incredibly tiny!) so we went with a latte colour on 3 walls and a deep jewel tone teal for the feature wall - it makes the room feel way bigger! I think in tiny spaces having 2 different colours gives the illusion of space as opposed to having all the walls one colour - I think going too dark on the walls would make it a little claustrophobic.
ReplyDeleteYou might need a fireman's pole too so that he can have fun on his way down out of the attic for lunch! :)