Bye Bye Pink, Hello Mainstream Exterior Paint Color!

As promised, even though its late, the color we will paining the Pink Monster is… drum roll please…

Na, I think I will make you read a bit more. Just kidding!

Valspar English Tea Party!

So, how did we come to this conclusion? Photoshop my friends, Photoshop.

Brian and I had been going back and forth about what the paint color should be. I wanted dark, he wanted light. I wanted a solid color, he wanted to paint it two toned. So, I decided the best way for us to agree upon a color and scheme would be to actually see how it would look. I grabbed a photo of the house and with a little help with online tutorials used Photoshop to mock up the color scheme so we could play around with it.

Once we saw how the house looked in a lighter then darker color and also how it looked two toned and solid we both agreed on a dark and solid. Here’s a few mock ups we considered:

Here is the final look we chose:

Obviously, it won’t be exactly this color. Photoshop was a great way for us to figure out what samples to purchase. Once we knew what we were looking for, I headed to Lowes to grab some samples. I brought them home and Brian and I decided on 4 to get as samples.

From left to right:

Valspar Relaxed Navy, Martha Stewart Feather Duster, Valspar Sable Evening, Martha Stewart Ground Pepper, Valspar Almost Charcoal, Martha Stewart Seal, Valspar High Speed Steel, Valspar English Tea Party

I first got samples of Valspar Relaxed Navy, Valspar Sable Evening, Valspar Almost Charcoal, and Valspar High Speed Steel. One was too blue, one too green, and the other two were just to light once I saw them in the sun. I had picked up a Martha Stewart color palette at Home Depot and selected a few of her colors to try on the second round of samples. I went to Lowes to find one more color which ended up being English Tea Party and had the paint department match the Martha Stewart colors in Valspar samples. Martha Stewart Feather Duster looked like baby poo once it dried, Martha Stewart Ground Pepper is very interesting and made it to the final two, Martha Stewart Seal is a beautiful gray but was still just a bit too light, and liked Valspar English Tea Party almost immediately.

To make sure that English Tea Party really was the one. I painted over the swatches above with Ground Pepper and English Tea Party. While I really love Ground Pepper, English Tea Party won out because it complements the rock planters so well.

So that’s how we found the perfect color to cover up the pink I so fondly describe as, “the color of dried calamine lotion.”