Thought Process on Choosing Paint and Flooring

We are officially closing on our first house this Friday and we have a month left with our current apartment before moving out, so to stay ahead, we’ve gone head and chosen our paint.

Let me tell you, it was not easy.

There are thousands upon thousands of shades of paint to choose from. And I mean every shade under the sun and the moon and then some.

I had a vision of what I wanted: colored neutral walls. In no way whatsoever was I going to do white or beige walls, but I was open to everything else. I wanted colored neutral walls to create interest and let my things pop a little.

Note how I said I was open to every other color but white and beige. I felt overwhelmed by my choices. I knew I needed to search for an inspiration as a starting point. My vision was too vague.

I started collecting inspiration from the pages I tore our of magazines. I liked way too many different things from dark cozy rooms to light and airy. From bohemian to traditional.

Then I turned to Pinterest. More specifically, to my Dream Home Ideas board. Not only was my husband fighting me on dark rooms, I had finally admitted that I was more drawn to lighter rooms and more cottagey ( is this a word?) colors. That eliminated the darker shades, but there’s still a lot of colors out there.

Jon and I had talked about upgrading the kitchen and giving it more personality, so I showed him one of my favorite kitchen that I had saved in my Dream Home Ideas board.

Via House & Home

I honestly believe this is one of the most dreamiest kitchens I’ve ever come across. First off, I love everything chevron (preferably herringbone) and this kitchen has it in the backsplash, which I’m in love with. Secondly, I love all the contrast and drama of this kitchen. Designed by Feasby & Bleeks Design, this is anything but boring. I’ve also connected with this kitchen because I have a window over my sink, so the layout is not completely different and I think the dishwasher is actually on the other side of the sink, but that makes no difference. I’m also loving how the Kelly Wearstler fabric plays off the chevron pattern.

Anyway, he was so on board with it that he suggested using it as our jumping off point. So, I did. I found similar colors that we liked for the cabinets.

After thinking about it, I settled on blues, grays, and greens because it complimented the exterior paint on the house (which we are not changing and is a greenish-gray.) and the mature landscaping.

Paint was not the only design concern we had. We wanted flooring that would unify the spaces. Right now, the house has three different types of flooring: carpet, (two different types of) tiles, and laminate flooring. The carpets in three of the four bedrooms will stay as is. One of the bedrooms had that laminate flooring. Ultimately, we’d like to swap that out to matching carpeting. Everything else would be swapped out to LVT.

We love what we have in our apartment now. The girls in the leasing office sent us a link to what they believed is installed now. I had ordered a sample and it is not at all the same. The sample came in darker (like way too dark for my current floors to already be faded by the light) and smoother (our floors now have textures that you can feel). Jon hated it. Needless to say, it’s been eliminated.

We’re picking out samples of what we like and doing our best to match it to our apartment floor. I think we may have found an option that we like, though it may be some time before we can actually get to it.

I found a few posts that I enjoyed about the process of choosing paints while searching for some ideas for maintaining color flow throughout the house:

How did you get your inspiration for choosing which paint to go with?

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*All photos were taken by me except for the one I indicated from House and Home.