One Room Challenge Week 2 | The Moody Blues

I have learned a valuable lesson this week. Blue paint will make you question your sanity! Great way to start off the One Room Challenge Week 2.

First, we emptied the room. We ripped out all the baseboard and casing. The rest of our house has updated thicker baseboard, but this room wasn’t. I decided to go with the same baseboard that is in the rest of the house because it will make the room flow and it’s nice, thick, and has the right vibe. I was pleasantly surprised to find some extra baseboard in the garage right before we left to the hardware to store to buy more. I saw it just in time! It ended up saving me about $80. Score! I considered adding some molding to the room, but I don’t feel like it would go with the rest of the house.

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When choosing the paint for this room I was very inspired by that older English style house with the modern flair. The photo by Alisa Bovino Interiors (Instagram: @aglassofbovino) above was just what I was hoping to find in the color department. I wanted to combine that with dark painted baseboards, trim, and doors with the lighter shade on the walls.

I have a paint love affair with Hague Blue by Farrow and Ball. This color is the perfect deep dark blue with hints of green. Now to find a complimenting lighter blue. I wanted it to be somewhat muted so it doesn’t look bright and cheesy. There is definitely a fine line there. My first mistake was going with eggshell for my sheen on these samples when I know matte gives the hue I’m trying to achieve.

I did a few samples to start and I noticed I was more drawn to the greenish blue hues. I really loved how Explorer Blue by Behr looked in the small sample I painted, even against the wall paper it seemed perfect. I didn’t hesitate. After about an hour of it being dry I went out and bought a whole gallon. I cut in the entire room only for it to magically turn into this awful bright blue. I mean look at this! I know that the lighting in this room is a major factor of these color changes.

I panicked. Or had a complete mental break is more like it. After sleeping on it (actually tossing and turning all night) I decided I hated it. One huge mistake I have made in the past is sticking with a color just because I bought it. Never settle for a paint color you don’t like.

So, I needed to get more samples. I went to Sherwin Williams, picked these 3 colors below because they spoke to me out of the 30 little swatch cards I grabbed.

After painting samples on each wall of the room I decided to go with Open Seas in a matte sheen. I can’t tell you why I chose it other than it felt right. My husband picked Resolute Blue and I realized how strongly I felt about Open Seas once he said it. If you want to know how you really feel about something ask someone else their opinion. Ha ha ha…

These are the lessons I learned about blue paint:

• Always go lighter than you think.
• Test a large section of every single wall.
• Look at these colors in the morning, mid day, and evening (It changes every time).
• The paint will look completely different once it dries and yet again after a few days.
• Don’t settle on a color. If you don’t like it at first, you never will!
• You are not insane. The color does in fact, keep changing.
• Drinking wine helps.

The room is now painted! Hallelujah! After this paint fiasco I am so relieved to be moving on to what’s next. The walls dried a little darker than I anticipated, but I still think I made the right choice. I can’t wait to get Signature Hardware on these pieces! Here’s a couple photos of how it’s looking so far. You can even see a slight variation in color from wall to wall.

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This coming week is WALLPAPER!!!! I can’t wait to get this up. Stay tuned to see this transformation. I think it is going to be epic.

In other amazing news, I got a new sponsor this week! The bedding will be from Beddy’s!! I have wanted this cute zippered bedding for my kids rooms ever since the first time I saw it. I’ll share more about that once it arrives. I am seriously pumped!

Now, head over to the One Room Challenge Blog and see what all the other Featured Designers and Guest Participants are doing! I purposely scheduled nothing else for today so that I had the whoooole day to peruse what all these designers are up to.

If you want to watch my Instagram Stories this week to see the progress click here. Let’s hope the rest of the room goes a bit smoother eh?

Love – Jenasie