50 Shades of Gray Paint

As I previously posted, it has been very busy around here.  Although we've been able to maintain the house, we've had to take a break from projects for a bit to just have a life.  Before all of the chaos, we painted the living room!

It was the perfect weekend for it since it rained almost all of Saturday.  We ran a few errands in the morning, then took one of our regular pilgrimages to The Home Depot to get paint.

I've been planning my gray living room for months.  Even before we had the house I KNEW I wanted it to be gray.  The problem is/was that I have no eye for color.  I was seriously concerned about the right gray.  I didn't want purpley-gray, or blue-gray, or something too dark so that it sucks out your soul, or something so light that it wouldn't even look like we'd painted.  There's a lot of deliberation that goes into picking the right paint (and the more you deliberate, the crazier you sound.  I actually said the words "Yeah, but is it TOO gray?" out loud).

This led to bringing home paint swatch after paint swatch and slowly weeding through them.  Each time we went to Home Depot we would grab a few different grays that we liked and then bring them home to post in the living room.  Of the gray swatches that made the cut we would acquire a paint sample from the store.  The samples are a brilliant idea!... In theory.  They are about $3 and allow you to paint a good portion of the wall to see how it will look.  We ended up with seven samples up on the wall.  Of those, we would paint our favorites on other spots around the room to see what they would look like in different light/dark spots in the room.

Unfortunately, this is the only picture I have that has any of the crazy swatches on the wall.  Try to look beyond the cat.

There was a lot of gray paint in the room.  A lot.

We finally just... Chose one.  After all of the talking and looking and swatch-ing and painting, we just finally picked and said "At least it's only paint!"  We looked at all of the samples on the wall and picked a middle shade that was not blue or purple and went with it.  A lovely gray called Manhattan Mist from the Behr collection at our favorite hardware store.

Manhattan Mist

We also did a few small things to prepare for the gray room.  We (and by "we" I mean "I"... Although I did offer them up for approval) purchased new throw pillows and curtain panels from Target, and wonderful new throw blankets from Restoration Hardware (a luxurious purchase for sure).  I also made my own curtain rod for the curtain for roughly $12 (tutorial to come).

Purple Rouched Pillow from Target

Embroidered Pillow from Target

Luxury Plush Throw from Restoration Hardware (in Graphite and Ivory)

We spent eight hours that cold, rainy Saturday painting.  And painting.  And painting.  We did two coats of white on the trim followed by two coats of Manhattan Mist on the walls.  It doesn't sound like it would take much time or effort when it's written down like that, but the living room is easily the largest room in the house, and it took a good amount of time to get it all done.  (Side note, the next day my legs and shoulders were killing me).

Take a look at what a nice change a little paint made (I'm on the hunt for the before photos)!

Pro Tip:  Open windows keep you from dying when you paint.

Fancy DIY curtain rod

Something will have to be done with the fireplace/mantle but I'm not sure what.

Blogger's note:  The living room is a work in progress.  We still have to paint the ceiling and we have big plans for built-in shelving for DVD's and games, pictures and decorative touches.  If only we had unlimited time and money...