Now that I have a living room I LOVE (or almost love: Mitchell Gold’s Mona Sofette is on its way, and someday I’ll eradicate the orange on those darn chairs…)
I have to repaint the dining room.
I know, I know. WHERE DOES IT ALL END?? Well, I’ve assured my long-suffering husband that it ends after the DR is painted. But I might have been lying.
Anyway, you can see the problem, looking from one room into the other.
Bright yellow next to muddy gold. Eeeeww.
I was really sold on GRAY for the DR. As you know, we recently painted a client’s DR gray. Benjamin Moore’s AC-28 Smoke Embers, to be exact.
I was worried it would be too cool and/or too dark, but it works because:
- The room gets a TON of light
- We added a coral rug for visual warmth and color
- Wainscoting covers almost half the wall, and
- There is an enormous window that takes up almost one complete wall. So there isn’t actually that much gray.
However. MY dining room gets some light, but not a ton. And we have vast expanses of wall (well, vast to me, since all of our art now resides in the living room).
My husband has specifically requested that the room not feel like a cave. As has Uncle Jimmy. Since he’ll be doing the actual painting, I suppose his opinion counts.
I immediately went to my go-to gray: Benjamin Moore’s HC-173 Edgecomb Gray. Too light! (It’s on the L.)
Then after many paper swatches and much deliberation, I put up a paint sample of Ben Moore’s 2109-50 Elephant Gray, thinking it would be the answer to all my prayers.
Purple! Eeek! I observed over several days, on different walls. In this room, it’s PURPLE. Not the look I’m going for.
Then I wondered about greens.
Hmmmm. I kind of liked 2146-30 Split Pea. But might that be too intense, even for bossy color?
Sigh. Back to gray?
In this picture, we have from top to bottom, AC-38 North Hampton Beige, AC-31 Hot Spring Stones, and HC-172 Revere Pewter.
Help?! I do have until Thanksgiving, at least. Plenty of time.
