When our contractor gave me his fan deck last week, I was a little overwhelmed!  There are THOUSANDS of colors in there…how was I ever going to pick one?!?!

Well, I guess I should start by letting you know that we won’t actually be painting inside.  We figured doing things like getting a working HVAC system, fixing the rotten gutters, and painting the exterior took priority over painting inside.  (Are you sensing my sarcasm?) Instead, we decided that we would just have all the plaster repair completed, and then have the walls, trim, and ceiling sanded and primered.  So imagine my excitement when the contractor told me that not only could the primer be tinted, but I could actually pick out different colors!!  Yayyyy for a non-boring all-white house!

After that revelation, and deciding on “white white” for all of the trim and ceilings, I took the fan deck and narrowed my options down to 4 basic families–green, gray/blue, off-white, and pink.  Then, with some much needed help, I came up with the colors!  (All paints are Glidden, FYI.)  It’s lucky that we are doing the trim in white, because we get to see each color against white in the deck.

1.  Green: “Foliage” – We will use this to tint the primer for the dining room (which will go great with the green fireplace tile!), butler’s pantry, kitchen, laundry room, and guest room 1.

2. Gray/blue: “Wilton Blue”- This will go in the den, downstairs bathroom, and master bedroom, bathroom, and closet.

3. Off-white: “Kitten White” (it was too cute a name to pass up!)- We will start off with this in the foyer, stairwell, side entry hall, upstairs hall, and the upstairs hall bathroom.  This may be the first color we end up changing when we start to paint, but for now, I thought it was best to stick with a neutral in those main spaces.

4.  Pink: “Orange Bisque”- We will use this in the formal living room and guest room 2.  It’s really more of a very pale coral.  We have a beautiful Trina Turk coral and white bedspread and I think the subtle color of this room will make those accents pop!

And in case you’re thinking that we missed a room, you’re right!  We are going to paint the office bathroom upstairs true white.  I think it will accentuate our black and white tile floor and black accessories well.

And last but not least, we decided to go ahead and paint the most random room in the house…the office!  From the beginning, Charles and I have wanted that room to be the one dark, masculine (with some feminine, of course!), “moody” room in the house.  When Charles graduated from law school, I gave him a present.  It was an antique desk that I found in an antique shop in Greensboro, and I fell in love with it.  It just looked like a lawyer’s desk!!

And thus began my vision for the office.  We want lots of wood and leather and even a huge print rug.  So with that in mind, this quickly became my go-to inspiration:

I fell in love with this color!  And the white trim and rug just go perfectly!  Charles was leaning more towards a hunter green, and I was leaning more towards a deep blue, so I felt like this was the perfect compromise.  And then I found it…Night Tides!

The picture doesn’t really do it justice, unfortunately, but I’ll just tell you: it is almost identical to the picture above!  And since this room will be so dark, we are going to ahead and have it painted.  The rest of the subdued colors can wait!