You know those projects that you plan, and you think to yourself, “That’s a one-day project for sure. Two days at the most.” But then you start the project, and everything goes wrong? Yep. Me, too. And this studio back entry is turning into just such a project. (Decades of HGTV shows, where a whole room, or even an entire home, can be done in 30 minutes or an hour, have really given most people unrealistic expectations. I’m here to give a little dose of reality. 😀 )
I shared yesterday about how I took the bathroom wallpaper in to have one of the green squares color matched for the back entry walls, and that process failed because the color I ended up with was nothing like the color I wanted to have matched. So yesterday afternoon, I took the paint back to Home Depot to see if they could try again. I was certain that I could get new paint and get the back entry painted by the time I went to bed last night.
So I explained the problem to the young woman at the paint counter. She took the wallpaper, tried the color match thing again, and again it was way off. Interestingly, it was way different from the first attempt, but it was still way off. So then she started tweaking the formula, adding a little bit of this, and a little bit of that.
About an hour later, there was still no match. I have no idea what it is about that wallpaper that makes it so hard to color match. I have never experienced such difficulty in all of my years of DIYing. But another challenge was that she was making these tweaks to a small sample container of paint. So when she finally did make a sample that looked pretty close, she didn’t know how to re-create that color in a gallon size.
I couldn’t stand there any longer and watch this painful (and non-productive) process, so I just had her take the sample that looked the closest, paint that color onto a surface, let it dry, and then color match that solid paint color so it could be mixed into a gallon of paint. I knew it wasn’t going to be exactly right, but I had hopes that it might be close enough to just go with it.
Well, it’s not. It’s just not what I had my heart set on. Here’s the original color match fail, the second color match fail from yesterday, and then the piece of wallpaper that I’ve taken in twice to have color matched. Those three colors aren’t similar in the least.
I know that wallpaper sample doesn’t really look like a fresh and lively green in the picture, but in person, it does. It has a lightness to it that these color match attempts just don’t have. And it also has just a touch of blue that the color match attempts clearly don’t have.
At least they didn’t charge me for the new paint. Once I realized that finding a color match wasn’t going to be possible, my main goal was to walk away from the store with paint that I could work with and experiment with. Y’all know how much I love playing with paint colors and mixing my own custom colors.
So I’m going to start with the new paint color as a base, and then start adding colors from my paint stash to see what I can come up with. I’ll definitely be adding some white (or lots of white) to brighten up the color. The last thing I want is dark and dreary in the back entry when the opposite wall looks like this…
And then, to my eye, it looks like it needs just a touch of blue or teal added to it. And thanks to my last project (my 72-color cabinet), I have a few of those in my stash to choose from.
But in other news, look what I bought!!!
I finally caved to the suggestions and bought scaffolding. And it did, in fact, make the job so much easier! I was able to do the cutting in on the top parts of these walls in a fraction of the time that I took using a ladder.
I don’t know why I waited so long to purchase this. I have a list of tools in my mind that I bought, and then looked back and thought, “How in the world did I live without this?!” Perhaps I’ll share my list one day. But after just a couple of hours of use last night, this scaffolding is now on that list.
I can be very stubborn sometimes (or all the time 😀 ), and sometimes that’s to my on detriment. And digging my heels in the ground, convinced that a ladder is just fine and I don’t need scaffolding, as definitely to my on detriment. Now I’m actually looking forward to the ease with which I can finish up painting the walls and ceiling in the main part of the studio. And I’m also looking forward to gold leafing the light fixture in the back entry. I’ve been dreading those two projects, especially the hours I would need to stand on a ladder to gold leaf that light. But now, I think it’ll be a fun project!
Addicted 2 Decorating is where I share my DIY and decorating journey as I remodel and decorate the 1948 fixer upper that my husband, Matt, and I bought in 2013. Matt has M.S. and is unable to do physical work, so I do the majority of the work on the house by myself. You can learn more about me here.
