If you caught our post earlier this week, you may have already seen that we had a bit of a paint colour mishap.
We bought a tonne of paint for our guest bedroom walls and ceiling which was meant to be a soft grey colour but the colour we ended up purchasing was more of a lilac-grey instead. (We were aiming for the grey on the paper.)
Admittedly, it wasn’t one of our finest moments, especially considering that our other renovations in this room didn’t exactly go to plan either (we drilled into a heating pipe last year, we managed to nail into a cable and then drilled into a cable, too!).
In the end, we opted to paint the guest bedroom white (we’ll share the completely finished room as soon as it’s done!) but that still left us with 20l of paint that we didn’t want to waste.
As we already shared a guide on what to do if you’ve chosen the wrong paint colour, I’m sure you’re wondering how we solved our paint problem.
Well, being totally fussy as usual, we didn’t just stick with one solution – we used two!
We slightly adjusted the paint colour (more on that in a minute) and we used the paint in a different room!
Which means…
… our living room now looks like this!
Yep, the walls have gone from plain white to a blue-grey colour. But, as you’ve probably guessed, it wasn’t quite that straightforward.
I already knew that the colour had too much of a purple tinge so, as well as using it in a different room, we also adjusted the colour slightly.
In our case, the “grey” paint that we’d had mixed had lilac undertones which is why we added a bit of yellow to the paint to take the purple edge off.
Mixing paint obviously isn’t difficult but, as you probably already know, I’m not the most patient of people and getting the colour exactly right took much longer than I would have liked. Not least, because of the quantity of paint, we had to mix.
I’m so happy that we made the effort to adjust the paint colour and it definitely turned out to be much less purple than before. We also really wanted to get the colour right, as painting our rooms with their super high ceilings is always a bit of a pain. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great to have such large and airy rooms but when it comes to any home improvement work it means that we need vast amounts of paint and a lot of time to paint our rooms.
Having said that and having lived with the result for a couple of weeks, I’ve decided that I still don’t like it though! Whoops! Don’t get me wrong, it’s not awful but it does mean that we’ll be repainting as soon as I can find the motivation to do so!
We’d not actually planned on tackling the living room yet (and there are still more pressing projects to complete) but given that we’ve now started updating the room I’d really love to get it finished.
I’d love some curtains (although we might need to take out a second mortgage given the amount of fabric we need), we need to reupholster the second-hand sofa we bought, I’d like a rug, bar cart and large coffee table and we really need to sort out something for our TV which is still stacked on magazines and a shelf! Just a bit of work to do then…
If you’ve bought paint in a colour you don’t like and are struggling to work out what to do, you can read our “What to do when you’ve chosen the wrong paint colour” tips here. I’ve not gone into the process of painting here but we did share a guide on how to achieve a professional paint finish every time which you will hopefully find helpful if you’re planning a painting project!
Do you struggle to choose the right colours for your home? Have you ever had a paint colour disaster? What colour would you paint this room?
Matt says
Hi,
Where is the paint on the wall/panelling in the first image from (the lical-grey)? I actually like it.
Regards,
Matt
Christine says
I quite liked it, too – just wasn’t what I had in mind for this room, Matt. It’s Gauze Dark by Little Greene Paint Company.
Cx
Sophie says
Where is this colour from that you used in the living room? Would you share the name and place you brought it? Appreciate you added yellow to make it look the way it does, but I even love the original colour and it’s exactly what we have been looking for. Thanks in advance, your home is beautiful!! Learning a lot from your blog ?
Christine says
Thank you so much for your kind words, Sophie! We had the colour mixed in a local DIY store. Whilst I don’t know the exact colour it ended up being we had based our choice on Gauze – Dark (166) by Little Greene. Another colour you may want to look at is the blue-grey we used in the living room in our last house which is (accidentally) very similar to the colour we ended up with here! The colour we used there is Steel Symphony 4 by Dulux (you can take the tour of our house here).
Hope that helps & let us know if you have any questions. Always happy to help if we can!
Cx
LizKMtl says
Been there, done that – grey can be so tricky! And in my case I was a picking colours for a friend’s apartment. We wanted a neutral tone in the hallway that would link the more colourful rooms together, and the grey I chose ended up being a light grey-blue, which became *really* noticeable against her baby blue desk. It’s one thing to mess up your own walls, but a friend’s…! I think she ended up repainting, because the last few times I’ve been there the walls look fine. Or I was overreacting. One of the two. But lesson learned: always look at your paint chips against a neutral background (I prefer 18% grey) to get a better idea of the tone. Even walls that look white might have a slight tint that throws off other colours.
Christine says
Oh no! I totally know what you mean. It’s definitely annoying but even more so when it’s in someone else’s home. To be fair, choosing paint is difficult at the best of times and it definitely doesn’t get easier when it’s for someone else! Luckily, it’s only paint, and you’re still friends. ;)
Cx