Embarking upon a DIY restoration/renovation is a major commitment and it is one where attention to detail counts. I want to ensure that the final result is a polished, professional look throughout the whole property. Where to begin? Paint.
Some background here: My mom is an interior designer with a brilliant eye for aesthetics. She's one with an eye for 1,000 shades of white and I learned at a young age after watching her buried in paint samples (still to this day) that a polished look does not come from simply picking a color for each room. The colors must work together in harmony with one another for a house to flow together from room-to-room. Simply picking colors on the fly can cause there to be a disjointed separation between rooms.
My dad and I spent many weekends painting rooms in our family's home and he taught me a lot of great painting skills, but it wasn't until I was doing it myself in college that I started to learn th 'pro tips' for creating a seamless paint job. I used to paint houses back in college for extra cash, since it paid well and I was good at it. It didn't take long to learn that the quality of paint that you use is essential to a good final result (though perhaps more importantly is the prep work). Benjamin Moore's colors, unlike Valspar, Gliddon and Behr, uses 8 color points verses 4 color points for every color. This produces a richer, more dynamic color that helps the walls or trim to feel deeper, more elaborate, rather than flat and dull.
I scoured the photos on Houzz to find paint colors that would really make the place 'pop' and found that the two most common trim and ceiling colors that caught my eye were Benjamin Moore's White Dove and Decorator's White. Countless hours later I arrived at a paint palette that was accented by two deeper colors. Granted, the palette evolved over time, but here were the inital choices I arrived at (all Benjamin Moore):
White Dove - trim and cabintery
Decorator's White - Ceiling
Grey Horse - Default color for walls, flat finish
French Beret - Bedroom walls (later discarded and replaced by Clark and Kensington's Blackberry, flat finish)
Midsummer Night - Sleeping Porch walls (later discarded because it was too 'blah' brown)
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