Gone Gray

Can you tell? Look closely, we swear it's not white! We randomly chose to paint the master bedroom walls a very light gray on a whim without painting a sample on the wall.  The ACE Hardware 20% off one-day sale gave us that much needed push to make a quick decision.  There's no turning back now!  Here's the winning color: Benjamin Moore's 'American White.' And the best part? We don't have to commit to one color scheme. The light gray color creates the perfect canvas for dramatic pops of color through bedding, lighting, and accessories that can be swapped out anytime.

Benjamin Moore's 'American White' from myperfectcolor.com

Photos of the room to come once it's painted!

New Chairs!

So, not much has changed on our walls since the last post, but we decided to give Valspar one last shot. We have two more paint samples on the wall (one more Valspar and one Olympic), making it seven paint samples!  We love our newly added Valspar paint sample color, but when we touched the wall, it felt dull and chalky.  Not sure if this is a common thing, or if people usually don't factor this into choosing a paint brand... Either way, we're finding that Benjamin Moore is probably our best bet and will probably add a couple B.M. samples to the wall by the end of the week.

We've decided to give an old dining set some new life by upholstering the seat cushions.  My grandmother's beautiful needlepoint seat cushions needed some protection from our two cats' claws, so I snagged some green patterned fabric on sale for $6.99/yd to upholster over the needlepoint, keeping it safe and intact. I used an Arrow upholstery staple gun and 1/4" 6mm staples for the job after I realized that my heavy duty staple gun that required two hands to staple, a pair of safety goggles, and massive staples that I later discovered to be roofing staples wasn't quite fit for the job...
  

Before

After

In a Gray Kinda Mood

We've been trying to determine a paint color for the master bedroom and bathroom for about a month now.  We decided we wanted a blue-gray color, something not too dark.  After about twelve bucks spent on Valspar samples, we weren't crazy about any of the color samples on the wall.  Our next paint brand pick was Glidden, but after a day of looking and two paint samples later, the colors we chose almost perfectly matched our Valspar picks. So, the hunt for the perfect blue-gray continues...

The good new is that in the meantime we did some research on paint brands (this probably should have been done in the beginning) and we've decided to try Benjamin Moore for a more professional result..well...as professional as it can be by us DIY newbies.

Our inspiration for the room is from our new West Elm duvet cover. (photo from westelm.com)

Here is a picture from our painting misadventures. The top three paint colors are Valspar, and the bottom two are Glidden.