The first thing we did when we bought this house was remove all of our kitchen cabinet doors. This post has nothing to do with that.

The second thing we did was paint our entire downstairs some gray color that I don’t even remember the name of. We looked at swatches at Sherwin Williams, picked one we thought we liked, and bought a 5 gallon bucket. Then, we went on our merry way painting every wall the same color, we stepped back, and I hated it.

It’s. Purple.

PURPLE.

To be honest, it’s not an awful color, but it’s just not what I pictured. I’ve lived with it though, for the last year or so. Of course I’ve also been living with test swipes of other gray paints on several different walls, and yellow-beige walls upstairs because I’m too scared of making the wrong decision again.

Trust me, if you dropped money on a 5 gallon bucket of paint and then hated the finished product you’d be a little gun shy, too. Learn from our mistakes – when you pick out a new paint color take your time and test out as many samples until you find the right one. Try the colors in different rooms and different lights – make sure you find something that will work; find something that you’ll love, not something you can live with.

I think we finally picked a winner but I’m still hesitant. It’s not that I hate the task of painting – I really don’t mind it at all, but I’m scared of making another mistake. On the other hand, I’m also tired of pretending our test swipes are some cool, new abstract art movement whenever I give someone a tour of the house…

Here’s to hoping the next choice is the right choice and that I can convince myself soon that it’s okay to try again…