Green with Love

A few weeks ago, I shared our

color inspiration

for our new front door. Our old front door was a classic red, called

Posh Red from Valspar

. While we loved our old front door color, we decided it was time to change it up with a new color. With our new house color, I thought a shade of  aqua or chartreuse would work well with our

newly painted deeper grey house

. I gathered all my paint swatches we were considering and tape them to the front door. 

We looked at the various colors from all angles, seeing how well they went with our grey house, white trim and red brick. I was having a super hard time narrowing colors down and asked for help from my

Instragram friends

, which gave me so much great feedback! Follow me

here

on Instragram. To my surprise Hasani loved the very first color and thought it was the perfect shade of our front door right off the bat. 

I on the other hand wanted to slowly narrow it down to the top to colors we loved the best.I secretly loved the chartreuse shades, but was so nervous it would look too loud & neon once the door was painted out. Totally not the look I wanted for our front door. I snapped a few pictures of the final two colors, and got mixed reviews from my some family. My Dad

hated

hated

the color and begged us to go with red front door like we had before. My sister surprised me, just like Hasani and loved the first chartreuse color for our front door. It shocked me, because you may remember she

hated the color

too just like me Dad. In the end we narrowed it down to an aqua blue shade and shade of chartreuse. 

Before I share our freshly painted front door

, lets step back in time a little bit at remind you what our house looking like a year ago around this time pre-house fire. Our former red door, looked so bright and cheery with our light grey shaker style siding (I still miss you front door) 

Our house now, with new our new siding and craftsman style front door. We loved all the natural light our old door provided and fell hard for this beauty knowing it would look amazing with our new siding and let lots of light in while still be semi-private thanks to the step up into our house. Truth be told,

 I was getting smitten with the unfinished

 wood, but since our home gets a lot of morning and afternoon sun I know painting over staining it would be a better long term solution. 

The color we decided to paint our front door was the color that made us most happy felt fresh and fun, was the pretty shade of green. It was also a color that sacred me, I know it sounds silly, but I stepped out of my 'color comfort zone' and I'm so happy! Our front door was painted Antiquity by Sherwin Williams. We are absolutely

 in love with the shade its a pretty vibrant color and looks amazing when you drive by the house (which I did a few times) and as you walk up our walkway. In the shade the color is more intense in a pretty yellowly green way and not in your face neon way. Here's our house before the front door was painted. I was getting smitten with the unfinished

 wood, but since our home gets a lot of morning and afternoon sun I know painting over staining it would be a better long term solution. 

Our unfinished wood door open to the our living room, before the trim was finished and the walls painted. 

Our front door now, in the back ground is a glimpse of french door that leads to our new laundry room. I love how fun and bright our front door is. We decided to paint the inside of our front door white to match our interior trim.

I'm so happy we went with this bright cheery color. Our home rebuild project is finally winding down after almost a year in the making, looks like we'll be moving home in a few weeks and that's when the real fun begins and more DIY projects are in our future.

What do you think of our new front door color? What color is your front door painted, a classic shade or a bold color?

* Edit: The color aqua blue color we didn't use is called Drizzle by Sherwin Williams

Perfect Shade of Grey

For the past several months my purse has been overflowing with paint chip samples in every shade grey you can imagine: brown grays, blue grays, purple grays and pale grays. I'm sure it comes as no surprise we decided to paint the inside our of home grey again as you may remember every bedroom was a shade of grey and our living room & dining area were painted a

greige color

(beige + grey) This time around we decided to stick to a few main paint colors for our entire inside. I know that sounds boring but it really helps our small house flow from room to room and its no biggie to me to repaint if I get bored with a color. I love that paint is one of the most budget friendly updates you can make in your home, all it take is an afternoon. 

I recently made a pact to add no more paint chips to my growing stash and look at each color one by one and then get samples of the colors I like best, but I could only buy three paint samples.I think confusion can start to happen when you buy several paint samples and its so easy to do since they range in price from $2.99 and up. However once you start putting over four or five paint samples on your wall it gets harder to make a decision. My paint samples sitting in our kitchen windowsill. I love buying those cheapo sponge paint brushes when applying paint swatches, zero cleanup. 

The two colors I liked the most for our living room / dining room and hallway I did large test squares of paint on our still un-primed laws walls. I was immediately drawn to the lighter shade of grey, since our dining room gets less natural light than our living room because of our front porch. I knew that going with the light shade would look pretty. The interesting thing is the dark shape didn't look that dark the paint card. Oh and the french door you see leads out to our laundry room / mudroom addition. Once our new exterior door is installed, the laundry room will be filled with light, but I'm getting ahead of myself. 

Now before for I show you our in progress painted living room and dining areas, here's a quick reminder of how things were shaping up. Baseboards and trim our our doorways were being installed. 

A view of our newly installed crown molding in our living room, in love. 

And now for our in progress pictures with our freshly painted walls, color I used is called Designer Grey. More details about our wall color in a few. Are you blown away with the color? The colors is the perfect soft and subtle grey with no funky undertones of purple of blue or even brown. Just a purely lovely grey. In case your wondering they'll be crown molding going up in our dining room that will match our living room after our kitchen is installed. Hasani and I plan on to DIY crown molding in the rest of the house, hopefully we can get the bedrooms done before we move in, crossing my fingers it goes smooth. 

Edit: The paint on the glass panes will be removed before we move in! 

Below is a picture taken inside our living room looking into our dining room. I'm so happy we decided to widen the opening between the dining room and living room, it really makes the space feel so much more open but not to open since we wanted to keep the integrity of our little rancher. 

Here's a view of our new trim work on the doors, all the doors in or home have the exact trim work. I love all the detail in the moldings, makes me heart beat fast. 

I originally found this paint color from

Meeks Lumbar

 - but my original paint chip sample went missing. Cue tears, however I do have a picture of the paint color we used for our Living / Dining / Hallway and Both Boys bedrooms! I'm not sure what color the brand was since I had the paint swatch colored matched at Sherwin Williams, the color is called Designer Grey. If your looking for a perfect soothing grey write this color down, better yet save this picture and take the code in to Sherwin Williams and buy a sample of this paint! Trust me you won't be disappointed. It dries more true grey than the sample dot on my paint. 

Before I forget, our trim color is Swiss Coffee by Kelly Moore, color matched at Sherwin Williams. Its the perfect creamy bright white without looking to blinding white. The color on the right in the picture (above) is our bedroom & laundry room color by Gildden Smooth Stone again color matched to Sherwin Williams. Another pretty grey and slightly different tone of grey than Designer Grey. 

Below is our master bedroom, and a peak into our addition which leads to our new walk-in closet and master bathroom. Once our new french doors are installed, the space will make more sense in pictures. I love how our new addition flows so well in our bedroom it feels like the space was always there. 

Another view of our master bedroom, and a sneak peak at our interior doors. I pretty much love them, and have way to much fun opening and closing them. 

Things are really starting to move along in our home and its feeling like a house again! So far I'm loving all our choices and so glad Hasani & I both love the two grey interior paint colors we selected for our home. I'm so happy I found the perfect grey (for our home) from a paint swatch that was hanging inside my purse for months! I even love names of both grey paints we choose Designer Grey & Smooth Stone. 

What do you think so far? Are you in the process of painting a room in your home? What colors are you leaning towards?

** Need Help Selecting the Perfect Shade of Grey? Hop over to receive The Ultimate Grey Guide, the best grey paint colors from light to dark click HERE