No Longer Mark Rothko's Bedroom

Scott and I have painted a lot of the rooms in our house, but had managed not to touch our own bedroom. We both knew that the oddly skin-colored walls were not what we wanted, but it took some hue searching to really find something that fit both us and the colors of the house so far.

Over the past couple of months, I've bought three or four difference wall color sample pots and tried them on various walls in our room. As of yesterday, we had different splotches of color everywhere. It really kept the room from being the relaxing retreat that the bedroom should be. For example, on the tv/photo wall, all of the sample areas have been marked in red.

I was getting a little desperate, lol.

The entire space just really felt lack luster. Due to the different light sources (hallway, bathroom, lamp, and window), we needed a color that looked great in all of them. We also really wanted to feel lightness during the day, but a cozier color transition at night. The current color just wasn't doing that for us.

So in my search, I started looking for pictures of rooms that really made us feel bright, yet cozy. I showed Scott this pictures from Pinterest and we were both sold.

Beth whipped out her Handy Dandy Giant Color Swatch Catalog and we were able to match it up with a color affectionately called "9075" (if I remember correctly).

The entire painting process only took a couple of hours because I was cutting in while Scott was on roller duty. We did one wall at a time because the room is small and doesn't have a lot of furniture moving space, but it really went quite smoothly. I began the entire process by taking this picture.

This was so I could use it for reference to remember how all of the frames were arranged on the wall after we had finished painting.

Then I started around the closet and bathroom doors to give Scott a nice pre-painted frame to roll inside of behind me. When I 'cut in', or 'edge', I like to use this brush. It is small, has a rubber handle (for long term comfort), and really gets the job done. If at all possible, I really try to avoid using blue painters tape for straight forward room painting (which I realize hasn't really happened that often in our house). For anyone scared of free handing around their molding, it just takes a little practice and some patience before it becomes second nature.

Before we knew it, we already had one wall done into the next corner. It was drying pretty quickly and we were really loving the result.

We were glad that the paint was drying darker than it applied, too. It went on a little light for our taste, but the worry was quickly set aside when we were able to see large sections completed.

Notice, above the window in on the right side of the picture above is ready to be painted. When Mom and Dad stayed with us last time, Mom brought us the awesome roman shades that she made (that actually work, unlike mine) and installed them. Since we didn't want to risk getting any paint on them, we cut down the sides of a large trash bag and taped it so that it worked as a kind of tarp over the blind. This worked really well and gave us the piece of mind to get done much quicker than we would have otherwise.

When the room was completely painted, we were super pleased with the result.

It feels very bright and grown up, but doesn't feel cold or distracting at night when you want to feel relaxed.

Because the wall color was so close to the color of the large rug we had in the room before, we switched around some of the rugs in the house and ended up with a slightly smaller (but fuzzier) one perpendicular at the foot of the bed. It's nice between the toes!

Another reason it took so long to find the right color for our room was because I was afraid of walking out of our newly painted bathroom into a dark cave. Before, it was kind of like this.

But now, it really reminds us of our honeymoon in Key West! A nice ocean blue room from the tropical green bath.

I don't know why the color is wonky here, sorry

We're so excited our bedroom doesn't look like a Rothko painting anymore! It's nice to be able to retire to a place that looks much more finished, especially when the rest of the house is really coming along.

Have you ever painted a room and it changed the entire mood of a space? Let me know in the comments!