Paint Colours

* Bare with me, it's a long'n but there are pics down the bottom :)

I thought I'd do a post on paint colours today as this is one area that kept us second guessing ourselves.  There are so many shades of white out there!  If you've gone looking for paint recently, you'll know what I mean.

Like a lot of people, we wanted to keep the overall base colours reasonably neutral.  Not so much for resale seeing that we plan on being in this home for a long time but more so because yes, while you can paint over it again - who has the time, money or desire to do so after going through the whole building process?!  I also like the idea of keeping the base colours simple and adding splashes of colour with accent colours.

Not keen on the more clinical feel from the cooler 'whites', we gravitated towards the warmer toned whites but desperately didn't want cream!  Not asking for much are we?!  Oh and I also wanted it to contrast with the truer white of the skirting, architraves and ceiling.

So in preparation for our colour consultation, we collected millions of paint swatches and did a load of internet searching.  We narrowed it down to a few colours, only to discover a few days before our colour appointment that we might be limited to only Taubmans / Bristol colours!!  I always thought no matter what paint base you used, any brand tint could be added.  No.  Not the case (well it can be but it's not the way most builders operate).  As we've since learnt, the builders have deals with certain companies which means you're limited to only their colour range.

On top of this, the builder's range of colours don't tend to feature in any of the paint swatches you pick up from Bunnings and the like!  So if you're like us and are building with Eden Brae, best to go grab and arm load of paint swatches they have at the Home Option Gallery.  Keep in mind that you'll only be able to choose from the 20 or so colours on display if you go with the standard 2 coat option (that's 1 base coat and 1 top coat by the way!  What the?)  However if you upgrade to 3 coats (1 base and 2 top coats) you can choose any colour you like that Taubmans or Bristol make.

Talk about making a difficult task even more difficult!

In the end, 'B' cleverly suggested we choose our flooring colours first seeing that we were more limited for choice in that area. So this is what we did.  By choosing our favourite timber laminate colour we could then hold up our narrowed down paint selections and one colour definitely seemed to look the best - Taubmans "Antique Ivory" (doesn't it sound awful?!). Then in our actual colour consultation, our lovely consultant Josie confirmed it was a good match.

Of course, after sitting on our colour choices for a few months when we I was faced with the prospect of not being able to make any more changes I had to listen to the niggling doubt I had about our colour.  In my mind's eye it was too creamy.  I picture our home to be fresh and light and maybe it's just the name of the colour but suddenly I found myself madly googling paint images and buying some new sample pots of colour to explore.

I narrowed it down to 2 new colours that seemed super popular on the Homeone Forum I frequent - Moon River and Nomadic Ivory.  Out of the 2, we both much preferred the Nomadic Ivory and lo and behold, the Antique Ivory sample card I had literally disappeared when held on top of Bristol's Nomadic Ivory.  Decision made!  We stayed with Antique Ivory.

"B" just good naturedly rolled his eyes at all the fuss over nothing but in my defence "Antique Ivory" seems a little bit more rarely used and no matter how hard I tried I couldn't find anyone who had used it or any images showing it in action.  I could however find pictures of Nomadic Ivory and I really love it!  Thank you Stormy's Castle for the below images...

I think this pic gives the best overall idea as we'll also be having similar coloured trims and floors.

Next few show the colour in a few different lights.  I really love it - it's warm, neutral and contrasts beautifully with the white trimming!

How have you found choosing paint colours?  And what do you think of our choice?  Be kind, we're past the point of no return now ha ha ha.