Today was paint day. And the thought of the day: Grey is frustrating. I'll get to that later. Here is the before picture, looking toward the end of the room which will the big tv area. Try to ignore the pile of furniture and the couch-load of stuff recently collected to go to Goodwill.
And here is the after - and the grey frustration. See how brown the countertop looks? Sherwin Williams call this "Thunder Gray," and the paint chip looks gray, but in this room it looks brownish gray. Tomorrow I am going to pick up a sample of the flooring and how it looks in this room. It looked just like the paint chip in the store. If they look ok together, I'll probably keep this color - otherwise, I may be re-painting the counter top.
Also, right now this room is lit with awful florescent lighting. Lamps will provide lighting down here later, which I hope will improve the color balance.
New furniture will be a black leather sofa with chaise and a side chair of some kind. Something modern and fun.
Here is before looking to the back of the room, which will be sewing/dining area. Note that the wallpaper border is gone - both layers of it. That was a job.
I went with a contrast on the brick, same taupe as under the countertops. The new ceiling tiles are also going to be a taupe-y color. The shelving unit in the back is going to be painted - stay tuned to see how that turns out. The antique sewing machine is not staying down here - it will move up to the new guest room upstairs.
Hopefully next week will bring new floors and I can start moving into this room. Fiber optics guys come next Friday to hook up the new big tv.
5 comments:
What did you decide on for floors? Is the good looking floor guy going to take care of that for you?
Janet,
I am an interior architect & designer. Paint color consultations are one of my favorite parts of the job. The color you chose, SW 7645, Thunder Gray does indeed go "brown" in certain types of fluorescent lighting. (I pulled it out and walked around my house to test.) Too bad too, because it is a beautiful charcoal gray in the right conditions! Nice choice!
If you have the old style "cool" (4100 Kelvin) lamps in your fixtures that are not giving you the improved color temperature which more closely simulates incandescent light, that is probably why this paint is looking brown. Under halogen, LED, or incandescent lighting, it looks like the nice charcoal gray you probably expected.
Now there are "warm" fluorescent lamps (3000 Kelvin) that do a much better job of color rendering. They are closer to the incandescent lighting temperature of 2750 K so your colors will look as they do in incandescent light.
In your store's paint chip display the lighting in which you are viewing the cards is generally full spectrum light (closest to natural daylight). It makes all the colors look their best and most true. When you get home, things change. If you change the lamps (bulbs) in your fluorescent fixtures to anything with a color temperature between 3000 and 3500, that should help.
Choosing neutral paints shades is very tricky. Much harder than colors. You want to make sure that you choose in the exact lighting conditions in which the paint will actually live. To do this, go to your local art supply, or even just a drug store. Buy a piece of white foam core board, preferably at least 18"x24" (bigger is better). Paint the board with two coats of your intended color. Then take the board into the space you plan to paint and leave it there for at least 24 hours so you can view it in all lighting conditions as the light changes throughout the day.
In a basement, it doesn't matter so much, but obviously you want to see it in all types of artificial lighting that you anticipate using. Always look at the color in the proper orientation plane too. Don't stand the sample board up vertically against the wall if it is the horizontal counter you intend to paint. The color will look different, depending on the orientation.
And so, the quickest way to see if this color will be better with warmer fluorescent lamps is to take a regular incandescent lamp into your room. Turn it on and turn off the overhead fluorescents. That should quickly tell you if you need to re-paint the counter, or if lighting alone will fix things!
Hope this helps! If you have offline questions, you're welcome to e-mail me.
Kathy@forpaws.org
Janet,
I am an interior architect & designer. Paint color consultations are one of my favorite parts of the job. The color you chose, SW 7645, Thunder Gray does indeed go "brown" in certain types of fluorescent lighting. (I pulled it out and walked around my house to test.) Too bad too, because it is a beautiful charcoal gray in the right conditions! Nice choice!
If you have the old style "cool" (4100 Kelvin) lamps in your fixtures that are not giving you the improved color temperature which more closely simulates incandescent light, that is probably why this paint is looking brown. Under halogen, LED, or incandescent lighting, it looks like the nice charcoal gray you probably expected.
Now there are "warm" fluorescent lamps (3000 Kelvin) that do a much better job of color rendering. They are closer to the incandescent lighting temperature of 2750 K so your colors will look as they do in incandescent light.
In your store's paint chip display the lighting in which you are viewing the cards is generally full spectrum light (closest to natural daylight). It makes all the colors look their best and most true. When you get home, things change. If you change the lamps (bulbs) in your fluorescent fixtures to anything with a color temperature between 3000 and 3500, that should help.
Choosing neutral paints shades is very tricky. Much harder than colors. You want to make sure that you choose in the exact lighting conditions in which the paint will actually live. To do this, go to your local art supply, or even just a drug store. Buy a piece of white foam core board, preferably at least 18"x24" (bigger is better). Paint the board with two coats of your intended color. Then take the board into the space you plan to paint and leave it there for at least 24 hours so you can view it in all lighting conditions as the light changes throughout the day.
In a basement, it doesn't matter so much, but obviously you want to see it in all types of artificial lighting that you anticipate using. Always look at the color in the proper orientation plane too. Don't stand the sample board up vertically against the wall if it is the horizontal counter you intend to paint. The color will look different, depending on the orientation.
And so, the quickest way to see if this color will be better with warmer fluorescent lamps is to take a regular incandescent lamp into your room. Turn it on and turn off the overhead fluorescents. That should quickly tell you if you need to re-paint the counter, or if lighting alone will fix things!
Hope this helps! If you have offline questions, you're welcome to e-mail me.
Kathy@forpaws.org
Sorry for the duplicate comments. Google told me that my first attempt had not been successful. Silly Google!
I have a guest bedroom we painted gray. In certain daytime lighting it actually looks lavendar! Most of the time it looks like a normal soft gray,, and is a very restful color.
I am enjoying watching your cave come along....
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