One Room Challenge | Week 3: Paint Swatches

I could look at paint colors for an infinite amount of time. Each one is so unique and has so many different colors within it. This week I went to Home Depot and started my search for the perfect shade for our master. I can make an argument for each one of the paint swatches and why each one is the best color for this space.  Nonetheless, five colors entered and only one can survive. Welcome to Week 3 of the One Room Challenge.

Week 1: The Befores & Plans
Week 2: The Mood Board

Right off the bat, I'll tell you what you probably already know: all these swatches are 30% darker in real life. Even though the darkest one looks perfect in the mockups, it is like pitch black with my eyeballs. Home Depot is my go-to since they are open way later than Sherwin-Williams (yay for full time day jobs) which means all these colors are Behr. So let's start from left to right: Dark Ash, Ancestral, Intellectual, Chinchila, Cracked Pepper.

I printed and cut out several photos of the rug we're getting from AllModern so I could consider how the color on the floor will play with the color on the walls. In real life the first two I'm drawn to is the two on the left; Dark Ash and Ancestral. Dark Ash is more cool in undertone and Ancestral is more warm.

But these three on the right, Intellectual, Chinchilla, and Cracked Pepper are still gorgeous colors.

I always, always put up the swatches in two different places in a space so you can see how different lights effect the color. In this instance I put it behind the bed since that is my focal point. Oh yeah, look at that beautiful bed! Another AllModern score.

I left the curtains up since they will most likely be the ones I use in the final space.

Sure Cracked Pepper makes a huge visual impact with a high contrast photo and is exactly like my moodboard photo. But I really don't think we'll enjoy being in such a dark space, and how you feel in a room is much more important than how it photographs (at least to me).

Ancestral (the middle one) looks great against the warmth of the bed frame and the warm gray headboard. Intellectual (the right one) is also beautiful but I think too dark. Dark Ash (the left one) is too cool and really just plain flat. I don't feel a lot of interest when I look at it.

This week I also decided to not do a wall treatment. Yes, I love them. Yes, it looked great in the guests rooms. Yes, I oogle them all over social media. But I really want the bed to be the focal point of the room and the vertical lines on headboard would fade away in front of a treatment.

Here's the mock-ups I was talking about. I used Photoshop for these btw. From just these, Chinchilla is my winner and Cracked Pepper is my second.

This one is a good way to see how the rug and side table will look. Again, that contrast of Cracked Pepper looks amazing, but you just have to trust me, it is too dark in person.

Soooo, what's my winner?! Drumroll please.......

CHINCHILLA!

It is pretty dark, but has the perfect warmth I think will pair well with all the elements we're bringing into this space. I kind of feel unsure about it, but my gut when I look at them it telling me to go with it. So I'm going to jump in.

What do you think? Is it the color you would have picked?!

Insert sentence about visiting all the incredible guest participants by clicking the ORC image.