Creating a Color Scheme for the Whole House (part 2)

Okay, so I knew a few colors that I wanted in our new home, but now I had to tie those together and add a few more colors. It just so happens that while this was going on Young House Love (my favorite blog to read) posted this. See the picture with the napkin and the swatches on top? Yeah, the second one is my bedroom color and the forth one is the color I had in mind for the office. And see the green color on the napkin - that's the color of my back splash tile! How crazy is that?

So from this I knew all of these colors would look good together. And this just shows you how anything can be inspiration -like a napkin. I still needed to pick a color for our living room, kitchen/dining room, and both bathrooms. We are not counting our son's room in the color scheme process. His room will be whatever color he decides (with our help because he's only 2!). I wanted the living room to be a kind of neutral and kind of green color -if that makes sense. I liked the third swatch, but more green. :Enters Sherwin Williams:

I have fallen in love with the Sherwin Williams color visualizer. If you are going to use it, you will want to set up an account so you can save your favorite colors. Also, you will probably want to write down any colors you decide on because I had a little scare where my favorites didn't show up for a few hours. Lesson learned! So, the color visualizer is great for several reasons.


1. You can see the small color swatches in an actual room. Even your room if you want to upload pictures. It's great to see them on a larger scale.


2. You can view different color groups at one time (warm neutrals, cool neutrals, blues, etc.).


3. When you select a color it will show you 3 options of each: Lighter, darker, brighter, less bright, more of one color, more of another color. It will also show you 2-4 coordinating colors.


So for an example of how I used it. I knew I wanted a green tint for the living room so I selected a picture of a living room and made the couches gray. Then I changed to only view greens. I tried out tons of colors looking for a wheaty green color and finally found Sassy Green!


For the dining room/kitchen I knew what color I wanted my back splash so I found a color similar to that. Then I picked one of their coordinating colors - warm stone. It was a little too dark for me, so I went with a color mentioned as lighter. I ended up with Hammered Silver.


Also, every color I really liked I added to my favorite colors. Then you can see them all next to each other at the top. You can really tell if they go together that way. And when you have a color saved, you can add a description like the room you want to use it in!

Now I just have to go by Sherwin Williams and pick out the swatches to view them in person. As soon as I do, I will take pictures and report back!

Creating a Color Scheme for the Whole House (part 1)

Even though we don't officially have this house yet, I am already planning paint colors for the whole house. There are several reasons I'm doing this.



1. I want the colors in our house to flow/go together. The easiest way for me to do that is to plan it all out up front.


2. We have already had a ton of family members tell us to hold a painting party after we close and before we move. They all offered to come help us paint and with as many volunteers as we have the whole house should be painted in a day. So, I need to have colors ready to go.


3. I am really excited about being able to decorate a whole house, so I just want to plan and think!


When I sat down to work on this color scheme I had a few color ideas, but wasn't sure how to tie them together.

-I loved this picture (sorry, no reference because I've had it saved on my computer for several months) and knew I wanted to use this paint color. We decided to use it in the bedroom because I didn't want that bold of a color in our living room and hallway.

- I knew I wanted to keep the decor and color scheme from our living room because most of the stuff was purchased recently. We have turquoise, bright green, and orange accents in there now.

- I want to (eventually) do a back splash in our kitchen in green subway tile like this.

- We decided to paint our office in a deep purple with mustard yellow accents.

So this is where I started. Part 2 will show how I picked all the colors for our new home.

The Beginning

My husband and I have been house hunting for several months now. We finally found a house in our price range that we both love. We have an accepted offer on the house and are beginning the process of buying it. We still have to have an inspection, appraisal, and get through the financing.

I love to decorate. I love looking at everything that is out there - even if it isn't my style or isn't something I can work into our house. I wanted to set up this blog to track everything that we do to make our first house our home. I also want to set up mood boards for all the styles out there that I love, but just can't use in our house.

Also, I am passionate about using what you have, upcycling, repurposing, or finding things cheap. I believe if you decorate on a budget than you can do a lot more and change things up more often because you aren't made to keep something because you paid so much for it.

I haven't used a lot of power tools in my life - really just a drill. But, I want to eventually try to build a few things and try out some tools. It might take a little while for me to build up the courage and I'll have to start slow, but I would love to be able to do it!

So that is mainly what you will see on this blog. I have an adorable 2 year old son, so I can't promise that there won't be a little bit of talk about him as well! I hope you enjoy it! I will try to update often, so keep checking back.