Friend or Faux

We went to the hardware store to look at windows and found a HUGE display of little paint sample jars. This was int0xicatingly tempting, so we went home with a handful of them. Since Rob really wanted to wait until we have our walls replaced (after insulating) to paint, I was surprised that he gave into temptation and broke out the samples. This was great fun, and the kids got in on it, too. We decided that we liked a sort of deep terra cotta Red for the dining/media room. I liked it, but it was a bit too dark, also everyone and their damned brother has a "red room" lately (red ROOM! red ROOM!). So, now I'm looking at different faux finishes to sort of break up how DEEP the color is. Another problem is that I can tell that once the walls are saturated with that color that it is going to be as dark as a tomb in here. Above is the color range we were looking at for the dining room. I have to repeat, we are using this room as a MEDIA room, not a dining room, so it DOES matter if the room is dark. Ambience is not necessarily a good thing. This picture is about true to the color scheme, but what you can't tell is how many different colors are in the whole swatch...there are about 4 different mixes that we came up with.
To the Right is the swatch for the color we are liking for the living room. It is called "pumpkin spice" and this pic is somewhat true to the color. It is a sort of deep curry/burnt orange. Also represented is "fun with painter's tape." Rob went and bought the first of the actual gallons of paint that we are going to use, so this is going to be our first fully painted room!! If you had told me about maybe...even 5 years ago that I would be painting any room of mine in any sort of Orange tone, I would have probably assumed you were a terminator (like evil schwarzenegger, not nice schwarzenegger) and probably dismantled you and sent you to the scrap stamper.
Another color we looked at, simply because we thought there ought to be another family represented other than the greens was this sort of Olive/Pea green. Now, I don't really LIKE this color, but I have seen rooms and even whole houses painted with tones of it, and it looked decent on the walls. This, however, was not the case with the shade that I picked out. This really DOES look like I splashed a pot of pea soup against the wall, or like I dragged some army barracks locker back as inspiration. I didn't HATE the effect, but everyone else in the family did, and the howling heard was quite annoying, so I gave up.


By the way, we actually did purchase 2 new windows, too, but they're not as exciting!