crying in my paint can

That might be a little bit of an exageration. . . no tears were really shed, but I was seriously close.

So- as promised- I painted my dining room accent wall. It's not quite the blog post I was hoping for but in the effort for the complete picture (not just the pretty stuff) of our life behind the ivy, read on. Apparently, I should have paid a little more attention to the NEON color in the Sherwin Williams color visualizer.

 The goal was to brighten up the space by going from the ashy dark blue color we had to a pinky coral coral. I started off strong- and basically spent all of last week painting. I really didn't want to have to wait until the weekend so I started during the week. After having different paint samples up on the wall for about 4 days

 P and I decided on one (the bottom sample, I think it was Sunset Rose- by Valspar- I think. . . ) and we were ready to go- full steam ahead. I even came home from work on my lunch break and taped everything up and started priming. Crazy, I know. . .

I did two coats of primer

and the next night I was ready to go- paint in hand.
Wednesday night while P went to the Astros game with work people, I painted. And it wasn't so bad- a little bright but it wasn't dry yet and paint dried darker, right??

Super nervous at this point- this was my major "take a risk" attempt and it didn't seem to be going well. It was SO bright- and SO orange. . . like NEON, but at multiple people's advice, I slept on it and went to look the next morning and I wanted to cry . . . it was BRIGHTER! Trust me- even if you are thinking it doesn't look that bad here, IT DID!

OH NO- I now have a neon orange wall in my dining room. WHAT was I going to do?? How was I going to fix this?? how much more primer am I going to have to slap up there?? UGH! deflating- and totally distracting that day at work needless to say.

especially disliking the meeting of the tan and the orange in the corner- YUCK!

Side note here- I am completely A type, must finish the project at hand, hate having things out of order type  person so this was KILLING me, it was seriously all I could think about and I'm pretty sure poor P (along with my sister and best friend) were talking me down about what a non-issue this was. I'm a little dramatic sometimes, I do actually realize this- usually after the fact!

Anyways- I came home last Thursday and it was still as awful as before. But hey, I definitely brighten up the room! Just not in quite the way I was going for!! The most frustrating part to me is that it just wasn't the color I was going for at all. I still think that maybe the girl mixed the color wrong because the sample paint was reading PINK not orange at all. And I kind of wonder if pink would look good in the RIGHT shade but after living with it for a day or so- I just realized it wasn't really how I wanted to add the brightness- and it didn't go with the rest of our house AT ALL! I don't know what I was thinking really- I still love my original inspiration photo here

Tobi Fairly via The Mustard Ceiling

but I'm thinking I'm going to try to add some coral/ pink accents in smaller ways now. In the meantime, I have re-primed the wall and I'm trying to figure out just what we are going to do with our little accent wall.
Oh and to add insult to injury, I had also put up paint samples on the entry wall (which has been a light blue)

and then I couldn't find the paint for that wall or even the name so I had to go buy new paint and repaint that WHOLE wall as well. . . needless to say- I have been painting pretty much everyday for a week straight now- and I'm ready for a break!
So for now, I am content to have learned my lesson, not to avoid risk, but being okay trying new things, knowing they won't always work, and learning to be okay with that! (that's the hardest part for me!)

I have several ideas now for our little accent wall, but have not committed to anything yet. I'm thinking:
1. Adding horizontal stripes a la Emily Clark

or

Apartment Therapy

We've got two shades of tan in the house as is so I've already got the paint to do it

2. Paint the wall back to a rich blue, but more of a true blue and less ashy, and then add some wainscoting along the bottom a la Gus and Lula

and Emily Clark

or Casabella project

3. Just scrap the accent wall all together and paint it back to the original color (just not on the ceiling- think we'll stick with white there. . .)

pic I took with previous home owner's furnishings- we painted that wall before we moved any of our furniture in!

Which do you think would work best?