Buffing the Living Room

I have been knee deep in paint for a few nights now as the living room undergoes its new wall color.

When I asked for two gallons of satin Sherwin Williams Buff (I highly recommend Duration - it really covers well), the very nice girl helping me said, "You mean Believable Buff?"  "No", I assured her confidently, "Just Buff".  Hmmm.  She had to go look up the number which had me suddenly questioning my decision.  After all,  Believable Buff is one of their best sellers and Buff doesn't even make their top 25 list.

Happily I stuck to my decision and am loving the color more each day.  I was afraid it would wash the room out given my upholstered furniture is in the off white, beige family.  But, it's actually a beautiful, soft, warm ivory.

Here is a corner where you can see the difference between the old (yellow) and new colors.  I had started by painting a huge patch on one wall that gets direct sunlight and it looked so....well, white.  But I reasoned, lets try it in a corner that gets almost no direct light (yes, I have these conversations with myself all the time - usually in my head, though not always).

So I painted this corner and then rehung the artwork to live with it again and just...you know...make sure.

Here's the arch going into the dining room that is fully painted with the new color.  And yes, I even moved that ginormous armoire out of the way, squeezed behind it and painted and moved it back when I was done.  It could go back a skosh more, but I will have to enlist man muscles to finish the job as mine have had quite enough of the whole experience.

I hope to get the living room done today and if I'm feeling really energetic, the walls going upstairs and the upstairs hallway (probably won't happen today though).

Painting my walls is a somewhat painful experience.  The walls are rather elder (70 years) and plaster (read: very uneven) so you can't just sweep over them with a roller and git er done.  No, I have to go over the area in question with a brush first, then later with the roller or sometimes no roller at all ... just two layers with the brush.  Needless to say, it is a labor intensive process and often takes a bit longer than I'd like.

Wish me luck and have a beautiful DIY weekend :-)

White Out in the Living Room!

The Sherwin Williams store by me had an unadvertised sale this past Saturday (40% off ALL PAINTS - even Duration - my personal favorite), so I bought a couple gallons of Buff - one of the neutrals I used on the  horizontal stripes I did in my dining room.  I painted a large patch on the wall Sunday to see how it translates in the living room and I'm just not sure. 

As I've mentioned before, working with paint chips and fabrics all day has driven me to want to neutralize my house more.  All that color can wear you out by the end of the day.  My eyes just wanted to rest at night.

As I ponder my new paint choice, here are some pretty mostly white living rooms that I think got it right...

White can look very warm and cozy, it just has to be offset with the right mixture of other colors or neutrals and textures. 

I have so much painting to do, but hey it keeps me off the streets and out of trouble right ;-).