Radical

I made the out-of-my-comfort zone decision this week to explore the option of painting the ceiling in our master bedroom a colour other than white. We had assumed until now that it was almost compulsory to paint ceilings white. I know, sounds crazy when you know otherwise, but we honestly thought that was the best plan (especially given that we don't intend to live in this house forever - it's too tiny).

And then I got brave. I took a little tour down to our local Solver shop, and amused the lady there with my wish list. I believe my actual words were "I want a dusky grey-ish sort of colour, a bit purple-ish, a bit brown-ish, but not purple, warm but not pink". I decided that although I was brave, I wasn't brave enough to steer too far away from the neutral end of the spectrum. So if any of you were hoping for this...

sourced from Flickr

...you may be a little disappointed by my boringness. Just bear with me though, alright? I'm already going out on a dusky grey limb!

So, the lady at the paint shop convinced me that I shouldn't go too dark, since colours on a ceiling always look considerably darker than they do on the floor or on walls. So I selected three fairly sedate options, and got little sample pots of each. They were Amelia (a Solver colour), Patrice (also a Solver colour), and Elephant Grey (a Bristol Paints colour matched to Solver paint).

And then I cut up pieces of cardboard (Louis' box came in handy for that) so that I could avoid actually applying paint to the ceiling (which isn't clean yet, and apparently it's best to avoid painting patches on the ceiling in case they make for a slightly different finish in that section when you eventually do decide on a colour and paint it). Please forgive the light, it was stormy outside so I was solely reliant on a lamp.

I also labeled the colour on the back of each piece, just in case. I'm glad I did, because I somehow managed to mix up Amelia and Patrice later on, so could just double-check what was written on the back.

And here they are all painted, alongside a little VJ board that I painted up in our wall colour to take with me to the paint shop. They all look like exactly the same colour, don't they? I was getting a little concerned at this point.

 

I even held Elephant Grey up against the kitchen wall we'd painted and couldn't tell much difference between the two colours. Sensibly, I decided to let the paint dry, and come back the next morning.

I laid all three out on the floor in the bedroom. They still look the same colour as the wall, don't they?

Fearing I'd just wasted $15 on sample pots that were practically the same colour as our walls, I taped up Elephant Grey, the darkest one, on the ceiling. What a difference! It's certainly true that colours on the ceiling come across darker! If you're ever considering painting your ceiling, do NOT miss the step where you get samples and try them on the ceiling.

Here's a close-up of the Elephant Grey colour against the currently white (although a bit worse for wear white) ceiling.

And then I decided I had better tape up the others, so I could say I'd done this thoroughly, even though Elephant Grey, the darkest colour, was still looking a bit bland to me.

And then I stepped outside the room, to imagine what it would look like having Elephant Grey all over the ceiling. It looks fine, and is definitely a bit different to the wall colour, but considering that I'm trying to stretch myself and create a bit of drama, I didn't think it was dramatic enough.

So back I went to the paint shop. I swear the lady considered running out the back to hide when I walked in the door, but she courageously held her ground. And then the process of trying to choose a not-too-pink but also not-too-cool grey began again. I ended up trying to choose between three different options again, but there was no way I was going to fork out another $15 for another three sample pots, so I forced myself to choose only one. It's a risky move. In the words of the paint lady, I'm being "radical". Although if her idea of radical is grey paint, then the Mardi Gras Parade in Sydney tonight is going to rock her world!

Anyway! My choice was Alley Cat (another Bristol Paints colour).

It's pretty dark (considerably, compared with Elephant Grey), but I have hopes that it will have the desired effect - to play nicely with our new dark floors and make the room seem larger. Really, I need to comfort myself with the fact that I don't have too much to fear, since the room receives heaps of light in the mornings, and it's nice for it to be cosy in the evenings anyway.

But now I'm going to have to keep you in suspense over the actual colour, because I haven't painted it yet! Patience, my pretties! And please cross your fingers that it will be love at first sight, because if it's not I think the paint lady might refuse to let me in the shop again for being too fussy and annoying!