When my wife and I first looked at the house we eventually purchased back in 2001, we somehow missed the paint colors. It wasn’t until we moved in and started to unpack that we saw the most disturbing yellow paint I have ever seen. It was sort of banana colored, with a hint of green just for good measure. Maybe it looked good back in the fifties, but my modern tastes combined with several decades of dirt and fading made it look horrendous. To our amazement, every wall in the basement and on the first floor was painted this color. Even the staircase leading to the second floor, along with the hallway at the tops of the stairs was screaming, “Help me, my paint job is ugly!”
Well, we set out to correct this problem before our eyes exploded. We sat down and came up with a master plan for colors which included taking into account our furniture, wood flooring, and personal tastes. I remember our last ski trip up to Mont Tremblant in Canada, and I’ll never forget the charming color schemes in our Quebec lodging. We wanted colors that were rich and tasteful, yet not predictable and boring. The idea was to give the house a pleasing aesthetic look while at the same time making it look alive.
Personally, my favorite color is bright fire engine red. This wasn’t a good choice of wall color for us. Scientific studies have proved that the color red excites passion in people and grabs the attention away from other things. With both of us being of short tempers, we decided red was a bad idea. Plus, we didn’t want the wall color to be the center of attention in any room. For the staircase and living room we chose a cream/tan colored glaze, and a soft but deep blue for the dining room.
For the kitchen we chose an off white, preferring to make this very small space look a little larger. We added color by painting the cabinets a deep navy blue and the handles and hinges chrome silver. It turned out looking quite elegant. To this day it still receives rave reviews from visitors.
The kids were allowed to choose the colors for their own rooms, but for the master my wife chose a peach colored hue. As you would expect, I objected to my room being overly feminine. But I gave it a chance and was pleasantly surprised. The way the light reflects in the room minimizes the peach color, making it look more like a dark cream. It’s pleasant on the eye, very peaceful and calming, and it’s surprisingly warm if we turn out the lights and get a few candles burning.
I never knew what paint could do for a house until we purchased ours. We’ve learned a lot about home decorating in the last seven years. Maybe some day we’ll get down to the basement and cover up what’s left of the banana yellow. Although we’d probably have to move a ton of stuff to Ottawa storage to be able to even see the walls. I wonder what color goes well with concrete floors and my work bench?
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