We just bought a new house! As soon as we did the walk through, I knew I wanted to paint the house. We’ve lived 8ish places in the last 11 years and I’ve learned a lot about my style and what I like in all those moves.
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I’ve only gotten to choose the paint colors for our main living space in 1 or 2 of the places we’ve lived. I mostly would just paint the bedrooms and live with whatever was already in the main living space.
The new place was painted with a dark gray color. It was pretty, but also made the living space look very dark. I love color, but after living in our current rental for the past 6 months there’s something amazing about having crisp white walls.
The space feels so much brighter and I love that I can add whatever colors I want. Although I try to be sustainable, I do love to change up my style.
I like to get new rugs or paint my already existing furniture. I’d also love to add some fun colored arches or mural or wallpaper. All of these things are much easier to do with a neutral base.
Of course, white isn’t the only neutral, but I’m also really not great at color theory and matching colors. So I figured a bright white would look great and give me lots of leeway with the other colors I wanted to use in the room.
Picking a Paint Color
Looking at all the white paints though was overwhelming. I picked a bunch of swatches, narrowed it down to my favorite three and then took those to the new house.
I narrowed down those 3 swatches, to two main colors and get color samples of those colors. Silky White and Bit of Sugar both by Behr.
I painted samples in multiple areas of the main rooms that I would be painting. The colors were very similar. But after looking at them, I decided to go with Silky White.
Painting the House
Silky white seemed like a great white that had a hint of warmth.
I painted the ceilings the same color as well. I chose satin for the finish on the walls.
Learn from my mistake! If you’re going to paint the walls and the ceiling the same color, choose the same sheen.
I should have picked eggshell for everything, but you know hindsight is 20/20. Instead I painted the living room ceiling flat.
This isn’t a big deal, until it came time to cut in. I had to carefully cut in with the flat on the ceiling and with the satin on the walls.
For the kitchen, I was going to paint the ceiling in an eggshell. But after cutting in on the living room, I decided I wasn’t doing it in the kitchen.
I had already bought a 5 gal of paint in satin and had about half left. So I chose to paint the walls and ceiling satin.
This made cutting in so much easier! I didn’t have to be careful and could slap paint on the ceilings and walls at the same time. When you’re painting a huge room by yourself, take the shortcuts!
Painting the Ceilings
Painting the ceilings was by far the worst part of painting, but it was 100% worth it. The kitchen ceiling was very dirty and the new bright white looks amazing on the ceiling.
The ceiling in the living room was very close in color to the color I painted, but I’m still glad I painted it because it’s just nice to have everything painted and new.
I didn’t paint the baseboards and trim, and I might go back through and paint them after we move in, but they honestly aren’t that dirty.
Next, I want to paint the front door a fun color! I’m thinking yellow… so hopefully I’ll find a bright yellow in the oopsie paint section!
John did the floors while I was painting so that we could have consistent flooring throughout the house.