When you first enter our house, there's a small room to the immediate right that has 5 great windows. We had no initial plans for this room since there was so much other space to tackle first, but when we (Greta, Charly and I) started spending a lot of time in here usually sitting on the floor talking, looking out the window waiting for guests or waiting for Chris to get home from work we started thinking about this yellow room a little bit more.
A little while ago, I teased this photo that we had painted the room green:
But the truth is, we had only painted one wall. We have experimented with a lot of photo backdrops for our halloween party, and this year we thought why not just paint a wall?? It seemed just as easy as tacking yards and yards of fabric to the ceiling and definitely cheaper. We decided to do a dark green and drape some creepy cloth over it to make it even more spooky for the party.
The initial color Chris came home with wasn't quite dark enough or green enough, so I went back to the paint store and had them add a little more black and a little more green until I was satisfied. This was the custom formula we landed on in case you're interested:
Now for the curveball that we didn't see coming. We liked the color so much that we ended up painting the whole room in the hue after all. Ha! The green, which we are affectionally calling "Reading Room Green" is a nice departure from the taupe that we have in the main area surrounding it.
It's rich and gem-like and can definitely hold its own in the small room with a lot of windows. We moved our Lily sofa that was in the great room until recently (but used to live in our old living room) in here and it's the perfect size. We hung the large photographs of our hometowns (Pittsburgh and Rexburg) and are still on the hunt for a lamp and small round coffee table.
Other plans in here include tearing up the carpet and laying hardwoods and adding wall to wall shelving on the far wall, so this can indeed become the reading room. Our books are anxious to get out of boxes and we are anxious to stop going out in the garage to look for a certain one, so we're hoping the shelving project will happen in the next month.
For now, we're happy to have a place to sit and look out the windows and chat and, of course, some bold color on the walls. We love mixing light and dark paint colors in our home but I never knew I was a green paint lover. And I am a lover! Go figure.
What do you think?
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Hi Julia-
I know this post is old, but I was wondering if you used a primer before painting the room a darker color or if you had one mixed in?
Thanks!
We just used a primer and paint in one!
Can't wait to see the Haloween photos! Also, I'm loving the color. Today I posted on my blog about plans I have to paint a space in my home a similar color!
That color! It's so fun and sophisticated and fancy. Perfect.
I like the color, but even more that one of you grew up in Pittsburgh! Makes me love your blog that much more :) I'm a Pittsburgh born and raised and transplanted to Philadelphia, but love those roots!
I love a reading room! Our office is such an eclectic mix of bookshelves, art, and color. I can see the beginnings of something great here...
I am also love, love, loving that green color!! I want! Except I have cherry woodwork and it would not be the same. I'm very excited to see how your home and family transform :)
I love that color! It's absolutely gorgeous! I'm going to have to keep it in mind for painting our upstairs hall...
So serendipitous! I love that color!
Love the bold pop of color...especially against that AMAZING couch!!
This color is beautiful. Thank you for including the formula. I want this color for my bedroom. It's perfect.
Reading room? Awesome. A reading room in library green? Even more awesome. Now I need to decide where to create one of those in my house (um, this might require a house addition). :)
Love the colour, but then again green is one of my favourite! Looks perfect with the sofa and the art too. I'd be dying to put wall to wall white bookcases on the far wall, and an oblong mid-century modern wooden coffee table would look fab. Add a "his" chair in the corner opposite the shelving, next to the windows and I'd never leave that room :-)
Oooh, I like your train of thought.
We've used Clark and Kensington paint in our house, and my fiance refuses to use anything else. Every time we go to Ace to get it color matched to BM colors... they act like we are ruining their day. But, we continue to do so. Were you able to take the paint elsewhere to have it mixed? If so, you may have just made my week.
We actually got this paint from Sherwin Williams. But pretty much any paint store (I would think!!) should be able to tweak paint color to a certain extent (a light base will never be black) for you at no extra cost.
Im loving darker colors these days! I think storage like what House Tweaking has in their living room would look perfect in here!
gorgeous color! and, i love the idea of a room just to sit and read...or maybe nap in all that light! can't wait to see what you do with those shelves.
This color. What a dream! I just want to snuggle up with a book and a mug of hot chocolate and sit for hours.......! The light coming in from that large window really makes the color on the walls so inviting.
Looks so cozy and sophisticated. Nice change up.
Wow! I'm a believer, and I've been known to say I HATE (I know!) green. Can you tell us what the original color name is? Not sure if you mentioned it -- thanks!
The original color that I tweaked was Sherwin William's Cast Iron. Which is more of a muted greenish gray.
I LOOOOOOOVVVEEEE the green. Its perfect. What a luxury to have a whole room devoted to sitting and reading! It's my dream!
love the paint color! on another note, I am dying to know details of Chris' spooky treat contest. We have our ward trunk or treat coming up and I am looking for someone else's inspiration so I can steal their idea. Please post the final spooky treat along with recipe and how to's....can't wait!
Ooo! We'll see if he can come up with something this week. We have a party we're going to on Saturday that has a "spooky treat contest" that he is pretty excited about.