It’s Not Always Black and White

When we first bought our house it was full of color. Unfortunately not any colors that we even kind of enjoyed. As a professional painting contractor, my fiancé wanted us to repaint every room, so it felt like home. Picking colors proved to be challenging for us. We are apparently pretty neutral people.

We decided to stop living in the black and white, we decided to stop being afraid of color, and to start taking some chances! Our first thought was, what we can do, to still keep the house pretty neutral for: if, and when we decide to sell it. Of course my fiancés first stop was Pinterest. Almost right away she found two ideas that HAD to be in our home!

In the bedroom we decided we wanted a deep gray. It was a color we both loved, and really one of the few we could agree on. So we went with it. It was such a deep gray it almost looked black. We saw a pinterest blog on having a glitter wall. Obviously, my fiancé felt that had to be a part of our home.

The blog stated that, all you had to do was mix fine craft glitter into a gallon of school glue and then, roll on. Lucky for us, I new better. As a professional I was able to make my fiancés painting dreams come true, while avoiding a potential nightmare. It is imperative to check the validity of articles or blogs you read. Things you should be asking yourself are 1.Who is writing this blog, 2.Who is endorsing this blog, and 3.What do the professionals say about this. This specific article claimed that HGTV posted it on their page, so it must be accurate. After doing some research we found out HGTV had nothing to do with it, and in no way endorsed it. Disaster avoided! In doing our research we were able to find “paint crystals” by Valspar. You just add it to your paint, and apply paint as normal.

Of course I was hesitant about having a glittered wall, but the room needed something else. We added about 2 bags of paint crystals to one gallon of paint. The wall turned out like nothing I have ever seen before. We chose to only paint the one wall at the head of our bed. The result? Incredible! Anytime someone sees that wall, male or female, they comment about how awesome and unique it is.

Our next painting upgrade was our living room. Our totally tan living room had become boring, and needed a little something extra. Of course my fiancé already had some “pins” waiting. We decided upon a “chevron wall”. Although the process was not easy, it was worth it. It has become one of our favorite walls in our home. It adds so much character to our living room with out being too over powering. The hardest part about that wall was getting the width of the points just right. When we completed our outline and had it all taped off, the painting was a breeze.

The last splash of color we wanted to add in was a bright colored accent wall in our kitchen. We just finished painting our cabinets from their standard oak color to “Bavarian Cream” by Benjamin Moore. Picking a background/accent color, proved to not be as easy as we had imagined it would be. Our living room/kitchen colors are brown, tan, and orange. The decision was, do we just do a dark brown in our kitchen or do we go big, and paint the wall orange? Once we decided to go orange and liven things up we had to decide what shade of orange. Now, my fiancé can be very indecisive at times, and had the hardest time deciding what shade of orange. We asked everyone for their opinions. In the end however, we were the ones living with it. We finally decided to do a vibrant orange. We needed very little paint for that area, as most of the wall was covered by cabinets. I purchase a sample size of a color called “Electric Orange” by Benjamin Moore, taped off any areas I did not want to get paint on and within about 2 hours we had a bright, lively, new wall.

Adding splashes of color or designs, unique to your personal style are a fun, and inexpensive way to add some character to your home. If you are interested in stepping out of the black and white, but may need some help from professionals to carry out your ideas, feel free to contact Armor Tough Coatings at 1(888)PAINTING. If you are not in the (248) area code, please contact (248)716-0089.