A Paint Panic Attack

Does this ever happen to you? You finally decide on a paint color, go to the paint store, buy the paint, come home, start painting and then, PANIC! It happens to me every. single. time. When the paint first goes up, it never, ever looks right. As I began painting on Friday, I kept reminding myself of this as I painted and panicked.

After much deliberation and brainstorming of all the possible colors in the rainbow I could paint the walls of my home office, I settled on a color that's been my favorite since I first came across it in the home of a friend 15 years ago: Duron, Sugar Cookie.

Here's how it looked when I began cutting it in. Awful, isn't it? As I was painting, I alternated between thinking the guy at Home Depot who mixed it must have really goofed, and reminding myself that each time I paint, I always think it looks terrible and too dark in the beginning. Even Max appears to be saying, "WHAT is this woman thinking?"

Below is how Sugar Cookie is supposed to look. Does the pic above look anything like the entry below? Scary.




Or, like this bedroom? Nope.




Yep, panic time. Just look at how dark it looks against the white primer. Yikes!




Once the "cutting in" part was done and I began rolling on the paint, I began to feel a little better.




I applied a second coat of paint this morning and here's how it looked late this afternoon after it was completely dry. Much, much better.




I have a long, sordid history with yellow paint. Twenty years ago when we bought this house, we had been "trying out houses" for quite a while. That was the term our son who was seven at the time, dubbed our weekend house-hunting excursions. During the "trying out" phase, we decided when we finally settled into a new home, we would paint the walls a soft yellow.

After buying this house and moving in, we could never find the right shade of yellow. All the samples we brought home looked limey once they were tested on the wall. We ended up settling on a really soft shade of pink for the walls. I know that sounds weird but it was very subtle and looked really pretty.

Several years later I met a friend who was married to a man who was a professional football coach. They tended to move a good bit with his career and she never knew when they might have to move again. She had discovered over the years that Sugar Cookie worked in any house and always went well with the fabrics/colors she always chose to decorate with each time they moved.

Our decorating styles were very similar. When I entered her home, it was love at first sight. I loved the color of her walls so I knew I had finally found my yellow paint. She told me Sugar Cookie would work with any fabric color (red, green, blue etc) and it looked great with antiques, new furniture, painted furniture...really anything. Over the years I have definitely found this to be true.




So, the walls are finally painted. Now I'm just waiting to hear if I will be getting the chandelier I found on eBay or if the original buyer will still be getting it. It's a long story...one I'll share soon.   Update:  You'll find the post about the chandelier I hoped to get, HERE.

Once I have a light fixture, I will have it and the crown molding installed. The same person will be installing both so I need to wait until I have the fixture.




Remember when the walls looked like this?

And this? I learned a new skill creating this home office...the art of repairing walls damaged by wallpaper removal. Wallboard joint compound is good stuff...messy, but good.

Here's the paint formula in case you're interested in having some mixed up. The Home Depot guy printed this out for me so I'd always have the actual formula. He said all they need in order to mix it is this bar code. So I guess you could just print out this picture and take it to any Home Depot. Oh, for some crazy reason, in their computer it is listed as Duron, Sugar Cook. So he looked it up on their little paint fan-deck thingy to verify that Sugar Cook is really Sugar Cookie.



We've come a long way. Next up...painting the trim and the closet. I'm so ready to get the furniture back against the wall and back in position as it really goes. We're getting closer, finally getting closer now.



Take a tour of the office from start to "almost" finished, HERE.  It still need drapes/curtains and a lamp or two, but it's mostly complete.