Hi friends! We’ve been knee deep in back-to-school preparations over here and I’m sending my son off to his first day of 1st grade today! #whendidhegetsobig?! Even though it’s always bittersweet seeing summer come to an end, I’m actually ready for school to start this year and that’s a first! I may or may not have been counting down these last couple of days like Christmas was coming! Come this afternoon, I might be changing my tune and all sappy missing my boy, but right now, I’m all #yayforschool! We’ll see if “my kid gets himself ready for school by himself without me nagging” is still working from last year today! We talked about it last night before bed and as I type this, it’s 5 minutes until his first alarm goes off . . .
A frequent question I get via email is about the paint colors in our home, and especially whether the grey in our bedroom and bath is a ‘true’ grey or does it read blue or purple in person? And also, how is the ‘greige’ in our downstairs? Today, I’m answering your questions (even though I always respond to emails too!) and sharing all of the paint colors we have in our house. I’m also giving you a rundown of how the paint colors look in our home, which is not necessarily how they look on the online swatches.
Of course, it’s hard to read color through a computer screen and the best way to test paint is to actually paint two coats onto different parts of your wall and view it at different times of the day to see how it looks. Consider what time of day you’re in the room the most to see how you like it at that time of day. If you don’t want to put the color directly on the wall to test, you can use a posterboard, but it won’t saturate the same and the texture will be different, which can affect the look. The paint can also look drastically different with the lights on or off, so you need to consider that too.
Below are the swatches of the main colors in our home and below that I’ll show you photos of how the paint actually looks in our home when photographed with natural light and the inside lights off. Most of the photos are taken in the afternoon. If you want to see more photos of each room, click the ‘room tour’ link below each picture.
I decided to make our glass cabinets more interesting by painting the back wall SW Urbane Bronze and then adding white pitchers and dishes to make them pop against the dark background. Urbane Bronze is a deep, dark grey with dark brown undertones, but in my house it leans more grey.
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Love, love, love how bright, fresh and lean your house looks. Thank you for linking sources. I am redoing some aspects of our house and your blog is my inspiration. I just started blogging and would love for you to visit my site as well. http://classysoutherntexan.blogspot.com/
Thank you so much Kelli! I'll come see your blog too!
Hope James has a great first day back! Had to believe he is already in first grade. Love the colors in your house. Agree, they look so different in other people's homes depending on the lighting and surrounding decor.
Can you believe 1st grade already?! First day was just a half day and he said it was great!
Mine go back tomorrow! I think the amount of light and other colors play into the paint used as well. Divine white is pretty but in my house it looks like a lighter beige or almond color, so for a white or cream it comes off too dark, I love it but it's not a white in my house. Comfort grey even lightened to 75% looked like a light sage green with a grayish hue, not the pretty aqua you got. Black fox is one of my favorites it's so dark and pretty in my house but my friend did her cabinets in the same color and they look like a lighter milk chocolate color. Still pretty but totally different. Another one I have tried is SW Iron Ore a friend used it and it was a charcoal grey but in my house looked like a dark brown??? And I wanted to love that one but shocked it looked brown. I tried sea salt too hated it at first but after a few days it grew on me it was a very light green but my daughter hated it so we switched to window pane. I always try to buy the sample jugs when SW HASpaint sales so I can try them out for a few dollars before committing.
I bought sooo many sample for our dining room! In retrospect, we might have went with a brighter white than Divine White, but since it's consistent throughout our house, it looks fine and no going back now!
Me too, I don't want to know what I have spent on all those sample jugs! But so thankful for them too!
Love those colors! It makes me want to repaint our bedroom! I totally did not test the gray and it has a light blue hint to it that I loathe! That was not the look I was going for!
My oldest daughter just moved out and I was able to convert her bedroom (which was originally the study) into my office and chose a gray that depending on the light either looks gray or has a small brown hint to it which I LOVE! My husband who already painted the entire house once and vowed to never paint it again loves this color so much he wants to paint the entire house again lol.
=) Bridget | http://nuttyhiker.com
He painted the whole house?! Whoa! My husband painted our old townhouse and it was the biggest job ever with such tall ceilings. Which grey is it that you fell in love with?
Hi Megan! What do you think about painting the whole house anew gray? I have white cabinets and the trim of the house will be a true white as well. It’s a brand new home so I need to find out which color works best in most rooms for now! I don’t want the house to look dark at all and I’m afraid that it will be dark after looking at swatches online! Thank you!
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Hi Sam! Paint colors are so tricky and you really need to sample the paint on the walls to get a true sense of how they will look in your home and at different times of the day. I will say that, in our house, Anew Grey isn’t dark at all though. It’s really pretty!
So glad I found your blogs! You have given me so many ideas… I absolutely love everything xoxo
Thanks for sharing the colors of your walls with us!
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Such a sweet comment to wake up too! Thanks so much!
Thank you so much for sharing this! We just bought a house that had divine white cabinets but a terrible brown color for the walls. We tried Sherwin Williams “Mindful Grey” but I feel like it made the cabinets look almost dirty or yellow. I saw accessible beige on Pinterest and then googled “accessible beige with divine white” and then was directed to your website! I love the two colors together in your house and hope they look as good in mine! I was thinking we would be stuck having to paint our walls a dark color in order to make the creamy white “pop” but after seeing pictures of your light and airy looking beautiful home I am freshly motivated!! We will be painting soon. Thanks again 🙂
Author
Oh that’s so good to know! The divine white is very creamy and not bright white, so just know that going in! Sending good wishes for a beautiful outcome!
What color should I use on the ceiling if I’m doing accessible beige on my walls?
Author
Such a hard question! The best bet is to test swatches so you can see how they look in different lighting throughout the day.