The Paint Saga Continues

I'm so over paint. We picked up 8 paint samples this week determined to find the perfect color.

Painting the SureSwatches

We found these neat paint films at Home Depot called SureSwatch. You paint 2 coats on one side, and once it dries, you can peel it off and stick it directly to the wall. Because the films are clear, you get an accurate representation of what the color will look like on top of your current paint color. It also has nifty guide to help you select a primer if needed. Of course you could just paint the samples directly on the wall (we did that after narrowing it down to what we thought were the 2 favorites), but the films are great because you can easily move them around to test the color in various rooms/light.

But we made one huge mistake with these: we first viewed the samples before peeling them off the backer sheet - I'm not totally sure why we did this...laziness? We just held the samples up in a few different rooms and all agreed that 1 color was the clear favorite (edgecomb gray) with elmira white being a close second. So we proceeded to paint those 2 samples directly on the wall, and, of course, they looked completely different.

Our step 1, which I don't recommend: holding up the 2 color samples rather than peeling them away from the backing (I know they look like 1 color which happens to be the same color as the current paint, but I swear he is holding up 2 different samples and it's different- you'll see the in a minute):

And here are those SAME 2 COLORS painted directly on the wall. No, the lighting has not really changed. Neither of these photos were taken with natural light.

They don't even look like they came from the same color family, much less like they are the same colors. Once we saw how different the paint looked on the wall (very different from the original paint chip), we peeled off the sample sheet & stuck it next to the paint that was directly on the wall. Wouldn't you know it? They looked the same. The SureSwatch sheets are worth the 98 cents, but lesson learned, all the benefit comes from sticking them to the wall - you know, like the directions said. This is also a great lesson on why anything less than clear films or paint directly on the walls will not give you an accurate idea of the final color. Not to mention that looking at inspiration photos is useless because paint photos are incredibly deceiving (see above for proof).

I'm not totally giving up. The first round of colors were all too cool despite looking pretty warm on the paint chips. They look almost light blue or lavender next to the wood trim, which we definitely don't want. We're going back today for 4 more samples - all shades I previously eliminated based on the paint chips for being too warm. Go figure.

In other much happier news, here is the kitchen tile floor. It's coming along, and I think I'm in love. :)