BEHR® Paint reached out to see if we might have a project that was in need of some paint and I quickly responded, “yes, yes, yes!” You see, we recently acquired an additional office in our studio for more work space. This room lacks windows to the outside resulting in zero natural light. This, as you can imagine, is kind of a drag. For that reason, we’re not crazy about the room.
I knew there was potential for a great makeover because I believe in the power of paint. Paint has the capability of transforming even the lamest of spaces. It’s all about color choice! As you may or may not realize, color can affect your mood for better or for worse (did you know that yellow makes babies cry more?!). With the right choice, we could transform our light-less room to something extraordinary.
Continue to see how to use color to transform your space and for a chance to win a $10,000 room makeover!
We’ve now created a few murals around our town and thought it was only appropriate to create one for ourselves. Finally! Next came the question: What can we create to best represent Lars that won’t be too overbearing? I set out on an inspiration search and found some great oversized flower murals and floral patterns. I’ve been talking a lot about inspiration boards lately and after 109 images on Pinterest, I realized that I’d need to narrow it down. I created a printable inspiration board with a number of rooms for inspiration. From there I realized a few commonalities: a similar pink/blue/green palette and flowers! Then it dawned on me: let’s use the lemons from our site! We could work in our Lars lemons! Ha!
And that’s just what I did. I love the colors of our site—a pale peachy/blush pink, the bright lemon combined with some natural greens of the foliage. I knew I wanted this to be a part of our mural. The tricky thing was translating some cute graphics into a full-size room.
I needed a blush, lemon, green, but I wanted some additional colors to create more depth in the room such as blue, white and deeper shade of pink. Selecting colors can be so overwhelming. There are hundreds of choices and you get those paint samples that have 4 selections per color. How do you know which one to choose? Luckily BEHR has a great tool, Paint Your Place, that allows you to envision what your space will look like with any of their paint colors. Genius!
Here’s what I do. First, I decide what type of environment I want in the room. Do I want it to feel light or a bit heavier on the color? I didn’t want anything too heavy for the room because I still wanted it to feel clean, a canvas. Sometimes in creative jobs, too much bold color in your brainstorming space can affect your decision making. I needed a light valued hue. I chose a blush pink, Candy Floss (RD-W2) that had a bit of peach versus a blue pink. As a loose rule, a blue pink will lean more bubblegum versus blush. These lighter valued hues are the top ones on the paint swatches.
Next, I needed a yellow that was a bit stronger than the pink so that they both weren’t super light. There needed to be a bit of contrast. I chose a mid-value (value=light and dark) yellow called Buzz-In (P300-6).
Lastly, I needed a green. I wanted a green that leaned on the blue side versus the yellow side. I found Terrarium (N400-6) which was perfect! This green needed to be deeper in value (darker) to create more contrast with the lighter colors).
My first thought with the mural was to create a sort of garden room where the floor acted as a grass. Though I didn’t want it to be too cheesy. I added in a blue/green floor called Rainy Afternoon (N4300B). It was similar to the gray/blue we already have, yet it added in a bit more green that worked nicely with the palette as a whole. With the lightness of the walls and the darkness of the green, I knew I wanted a mid-value floor color. This color was one of the middle colors on the paint swatch.
I used BEHR Premium Plus® Interior Paint, which is a 100% acrylic, paint & primer in one that provides exceptional value and durability. It has the best-in-class performance starting under $25 and is the highest rated zero VOC paint. Plus, it seals both uncoated and previously painted surfaces to create a finish that resists mildew, stains, moisture, and wear. Plus it stands up to scrubbing. Score!
Our office before was a super hodge podge of leftover props (and still is! We’re working on it!).
You can see how plain it is. It feels pretty basic with the white walls and our decorations are mostly craft projects from the blog that haven’t made it into storage yet. It’s like the land of misfit toys! But, there’s a post right in the middle of the wall that adds a nice division of space in the room so I decided to play on that. I thought that it would be cool to designate some room for inspiration and calendaring with some faux painted bulletin boards. I like when inspiration images are placed on white because it gives them room to breathe, so this was a great solution to the room. We added pink borders to make a clean finish. Voila!
It all went according to plan, minus a minor painting spill (all over my clothes and floor. Gah!).
The mural required a completely dried surface so we waited 24 hours before drawing on the wall and then adding the paint on.
How to use color to transform your space!
- Use lighter colors to brighten up a small, dark space. The light pink acts almost as a neutral and is complimented by the bright lemons and grounded by the earthy green floor.
- Get creative! Paint is great because it’s not permanent–you can always paint over it! We wanted to add whimsy to our room with the lemon branches and it created such a unique and fun look.
- Don’t be afraid of negative space. We set aside 3 areas in our room to keep white so we could utilize the space as areas for inspiration. You can create some relief by keeping a specific area white, whether it’s an entire wall or a few frames like we did.
If you’re as big a fan of pink and yellow as I am, you can create your own whimsical room with these same colors! Buy my BEHR Color Clinic custom palette on BEHR.com HERE!
I love how the transformation turned out and excited to put together the room in a more cohesive way. Let the party begin!
Sweepstakes
Are you looking to use color to transform your space? You’re in luck! I’m thrilled to be working with BEHR® Paint on a fun social media even on April 20-21st called the Color Clinic. I’ll be sharing some advice on how to use color in your own space over on Instagram. I’ll be on-call on Instagram answering your color and DIY questions on April 20, from 5-7p.m. EST. If you comment and use the tag #BehrColorClinicSweepstakes, you’ll be entered to win a $10,000 room makeover and video chat with TV personality, Sabrina Soto and second place winners will receive $200 gift cards to The Home Depot®.
Mark your calendars for April 20th and I hope to see you there!
This post is sponsored by BEHR® Paint. Thank you to the brands that allow us to create original content.
Photography by Anna Killian for The House That Lars Built