Painting the Living Room

“Let’s paint the living room yellow!”

Here I was, thinking that painting a bedroom gray was a big step and Jonathan is looking at yellow for our living room. He was so excited, what could I say but yes? I had one caveat—I would get to pick the shade.

We’ve all seen the historic Craftsman homes with the stained wood paneling and the warm gold walls, but I wasn’t sure it would translate to a bright room with white trim. In fact, I was sure it would end up looking like one big school bus. (“Those are actually orange,” says Jonathan.)

I asked my mom to see if she could find a yellow that complemented the grey and the green of the bedrooms and she got straight to work (she’s got perfect pitch when it comes to colors and is a genius at matching them.) Here’s the results of her research:

It came in the same post as our New Yorker Magazine so I figured it was a sign:

Unfortunately, the shade of gold my mom recommended was a little too close to our wood floors and I was concerned we’d end up with a monochromatic room. I turned to our trusty Sherwin Williams paint chips and found something close, but slightly brighter:

We were pros at painting by then and we finished up the living room fairly quickly. We think it ended up looking fantastic with the white trim—and not at all like a school bus.