On the perils and pitfalls of choosing neutrals

Every half an hour I go outside and stare at the house.

Not because I love the roof, like on the Colorbond ad,

but because I'm just not sure about the colour scheme I've chosen.

And it's too late, really, to change it.

So what I'm really wondering is

"can I live with this??"

Our house has been two shades of bluey-green 

for the past 12 years.

I have always loved the way those shades toned together

but time for a change.

Neutrals.

We decided to stick with Wattyl Solagard

and Wattyl colours.

Not a whole lot of neutrals to choose from,

really ...

The first sample pots were too 

brown/purple.

Similar to this colour.

Not what we wanted outside.

So we went with 

Rock Oyster,

Moon Shell

English Castle

& 

Nature's Bloom.

After weeks of agonising, months ago,

I made that decision and stuck to it,

without trying sample pots this time.

Last week when the painting began,

we quickly realised that there wasn't the contrast we wanted between the

Rock Oyster and the Moon Shell

so asked the painter to double the tint on the

Rock Oyster, for the weatherboards.

Upstairs, on top of the new cement board and weatherboards

the colours look good in most lights,

grey with a touch of green.

But downstairs, over the old green paint,

and close up,

the colours look khaki

And now this is what I see when I open the front door:

Green, green, green.

Similar to a colour called Retro Avocado.

And not so different to this:

So instead of the "traditional with a twist of contemporary"

that I was hoping for,

the house just looks '90s'.

Or 80s.

Or 70s.

And the English Castle in gloss

turns out to be pukey brown-khaki in the sunshine,

not the sophisticated charcoal-brown I envisaged.

Nature's Bloom, while being a lovely light cream on the colour chip

turns out to be "white".

Also not the look I was hoping for, and adding to the 1970s effect.

But at least this works now:

The old white screen door matching the front door colours

for the first time ever, having had various colours on that door in the past.

So that's one thing that won't need to be replaced ;-)

The verandah ceiling is looking better than we've ever seen it

although we hadn't planned for it to be green.

The painters are doing a brilliant job,

scrubbing, scraping, stripping conserving and painting.

And even in the rain.

No complaints there.

Upstairs painted, part of downstairs painted.  Original green still on weatherboards here.

So ... 

If the upstairs and downstairs end up looking the same colour 

(not greyish upstairs and greenish downstairs),

 I can live with it.

We might plant more natives

going for an "Australian bush" look.

And the lovely Linda reminded me that one can go 

too grey, and our house is definitely not that now!

. . .

But oh, why do paint colours have to be so tricky???


Linking to Metamorphosis Monday