First home renovation project!
The living/dining room, with its garden-overlooking windows and crazy floors, was the very first thing that piqued my interest when I spotted our house on the Internet. But still: there were things about it that I knew I’d want to change.
The “After”…after the jump!
I have a total thing about yellow in houses.
When I was a resident of California, I spent three years living in a house that was painted yellow both inside and out, and I loved it: it was sunny, cozy, bright, warm…and when people came to visit, I got to say, “Take a left at the stop sign…and it’ll be the little yellow house on your right.”
And even though blue can be lovely, for sure, it’s just not really my thing: my bedroom in LA was painted a sort of pool-turquoise, and it never felt particularly comfortable to me. So even though the shade that the previous owners painted the living room was pretty…I knew right away that I’d want something warmer.
The only thing was, the (totally amazing, IMO) floors – which need a little rehabbing themselves, as you can see (another project!) – were striking enough that I didn’t want to go too wild on the walls. And choosing a color can be pretty stressful even in the simplest space – it’s a major commitment, one that has an enormous impact on the overall look and feel of a room.
The solution: Valspar’s Warm Summer, a pale lemon yellow that’s simple but striking.
I finished off the look with sheer, breezy curtains and whimsical tie-backs (these are from Urban Outfitters).
See? Big difference.
I love it. (FYI, the shade is actually quite a bit paler than it looks here; these photos were taken at sunset, so the color appears slightly more intense than it actually is…but I am impatient and wanted to show you right away. In any case, I’ll be posting a daytime-lit and furniture-including shot shortly.)
But even if I didn’t love it, it would have been OK: Valspar offers a Love Your Color Guarantee, which guarantees that if you don’t love your first color you can have another (on them!) through October 8, 2012.
I did not do this, because I had a teeny tiny window between closing and moving, but even so, I knew that even if the color turned out to be nothing like I’d imagined, two new gallons of paint would arrive on my doorstep courtesy of Valspar, enabling me to pull a switcheroo.
And that is a good thing to know.
Excited to show you phase 2: furniture (coming up shortly)!
