Once You Pop, You Can't Stop

Okay so if the suspense hasn't killed you by now, you're probably my Facebook friend and know the results of Paint Indecision 2013. We finally went for it. We picked a color. Are you ready? Remember, it was between Benjamin Moore's Dolphin AF-715 and Benjamin Moore's Galveston Gray AC-27.

And the winner was....
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Galveston Gray (!!!):

We went with the lighter of the two choices. I wasn't sure it could hold it's own against the Benjamin Moore's Bird's Egg 2051-60 in the hallway, but it totally does. E repeatedly let me know that it was ultimately my decision, but that he thought that Dolphin would be too dark. That kicked my anxiety into high gear, and although I loved Dolphin and was leaning towards it the entire time, I just couldn't go through with it in the end. Galveston Gray is a nice, toasty gray. It's the same tone as Studio Taupe, but more gray than beige on the greige scale (Studio Taupe is the opposite- more beige than gray). For the sake of full disclosure, it's still a little bland behind the beige couches in some lights (I wish the couches "popped" more) but it's definitely better than before, and I love it with everything else in our living room. It's part of BM's "America's Colors" collection, and I'm guessing it's named after Galveston, TX, but I'm not really sure what's so greige about Texas. I'm a New England girl, remember?

Here's a sneak peek:

My warrior of a husband worked an overnight shift, went to grad school, and picked up a gallon and a quart of this bad boy from Home Depot "on his way" home for me. Okay, it's not exactly on his way. It's pretty much out of his way, actually. Which scores him even more props.

I'm not sure why, but we usually get our Benjamin Moore picks color matched to Behr paint+primer in one. I used to think it was because I liked the Behr coverage/application more, but people always seem surprised when I tell them that. So I'm piecing it together that it's actually a combination of Home Depot's hours being way more convenient (open till 10 or 11pm) than those of the smaller hardware stores that sell BM paint (which all close by 7pm) and the fact that BM "sample" sizes are like $6+ each vs getting a color matched to a Behr sample size costing $3-4. I'm sure the Behr gallon is also cheaper than the BM gallon. So that's probably why.

Then on one of his next overnight shifts, (the night before Yom Kippur actually) I hit my breaking point of not being able to handle the patchwork quilt of paint swatches on our walls (see here) and decided to just do the edging. That way it'd be easier when I decided to do the full walls... I'd just have to move all of the furniture to the middle of the room and go for it without worrying about details.

Yeah, but that didn't happen. Once you pop, you just can't stop.

Ok, this might be TMI but it happened to be really hot and humid that night, and I don't think I've EVER sweat that much in my life. Someone should make a DIY Workout video. I literally thought I was going to pass out (I'm sure it had nothing to do with the paint fumes).

Anyway, this little Brooklyn apartment living room of ours is feeling more and more "us". E walked into the room the next morning and said "It feels so much more home-y!" BOOM. Those were the exact words I was looking for. BTW Our new theme for the house is somewhere between "Urban Lumberjack" and "Urban Hobbit Hole". Yep. I've clearly given this too much a lot of thought.

I'll post some photos of the actual room tomorrow (or "soon"), but first you should know that I've been at it again with my poor poor photoshop skillz. No, it's not even photoshop. It's from "Instacollage" on my iPhone. I'm hanging my head in shame, don't worry. But this, my friends, is our current collection of paint colors in our apartment.

The guest room might get repainted with Behr's Studio Taupe at some point (we have a bunch leftover from our first living room painting experience- and I love the color, just not in the living room) but for now it's Stone, which is a gray with purple undertones. And after this super uncomfortably hot painting experience, it might be awhile before I tackle a paint job again. 

Regardless, I'm actually pretty pleased with the combination. It honestly goes together better in the photo than in real life, but we'll roll with it. And speaking of rolling, I'm out of here. Hopefully I'll get that next post up tomorrow!