Pursuing Paint

I love the feel of a room with dark hardwoods and white walls (or white walls with a subtle tinge of color).  


This has only been solidified with my recent reading of Vicente Wolf's Lifting the Curtain on Design.  I have long admired his work-but the book gave me a glimpse into his design process, and I think he's an utter genius-the way he melds his travel inspiration from far-flung and exotic places, translating them in to his design projects are inspirational and aspirational.  His monochromatic rooms are subtle and soothing, yet intoxicating.  But I will save more of my praise for a separate post before I veer too off topic.


In my last home, the espresso floors were an easy choice, the paint colors were not.  After much deliberation I ended up loving the color I put on my walls: Sherwin Williams Nuance.  Most people that came in to my house went through the same exercise: they tried to pinpoint the exact hue and often came up with blue-ish, green-ish, gray-ish, which was immediately followed by an inquiry as to the name of the paint color to add to their repertoire.

This time, I am searching for a subtle true gray cast (without it going blue or green).  Picking paint colors can often be the last link in uniting a space and with endless colors with varied undertones that change in different casts of light, it is often one of my hardest design decisions.  Picking paint colors is a true art.


Case in point, nuance doesn't exactly look green-ish, gray-ish, blue-ish here, and that's why it is so difficult to ultimately pick your color by just looking at a small paper sample.  It pays to limit your choices via the color swatches, pick up a few actual samples, paint a small portion of your wall (or paint a posterboard and tape it to the wall), and return at different points in the day to see which color you like best.


Serena and Lily has their own line of paints.  Their website is chock full of visual delights, but this image stopped me in my tracks.  Here was the perfect paint color!

This vignette also reminds me of this photo from Rue Magazine--an image that wowed me (Windsor Smith):

I love the color of the paint in the Serena and Lily image, light, almost white, but with a subtle gray hue.  I thought I had found the winner, but after putting a call into the company, they were unsure of the color and didn't believe it was from their paint line.


However, Serena and Lily have other beautiful paint colors to choose from I don't think you can go wrong.  Here are some of the colors I could definitely see myself incorporating in to our home.

See their entire collection here.


Still on the hunt for that elusive perfect color!