the story...

For the first six years we were married, Matt and I lived in rental places. Do you know what that means? It means plain, boring, generic beige-ish walls. We always talked about how nice it would be one day when we could actually have COLOR on the walls. Well, when we bought our house, we set out to have plenty of COLOR. We did end up painting the bathrooms and hall a neutral color, but they are pretty small spaces.

Well, when it came to picking a color for our bedroom, I had a hard time finding something that I liked. I needed to pick something that would go with our bedding. Matt was a fan of blue, so we ended up picking a medium blue color (seen in the picture below). It didn't get me excited like the other colors that we picked out for the house, but I liked it well enough.

Once we moved in and put our furniture in and such, the room just didn't feel comfortable. It felt cold. Rugs, I thought...that will help warm things up. And it did, but it didn't fix the problem. Curtains, I thought...that will definitely help things. However, I was never able to find something that went with the quilt, the wall, AND that I liked. The red ones you see below were originally bought to try in the living room. They didn't work there, so before taking them back I hung them up in our room. I did not like the red with the blue walls, but it definitely helped the feeling of the room, so they stayed. Unfortunately, the problem was still not fixed. The room still felt cold and uncomfortable and just not "right". By this time, I was pregnant and didn't need to be smelling paint fumes, so I tried to figure out another way to fix the problem. Light...we need more light, I thought. Nope, that didn't help. Still too dark and dreary. New bedding...brighter bedding...maybe that. But you know what? Everything I found that I liked that would go with the blue walls was expensive! And they all felt like settling. I just couldn't bring myself to settle for something expensive.

So, Matt offered to paint the room for me. Now, Matt is not a painter. This idea did not excite him in the least. But he knew that I was unhappy with how things were, so we he was willing to fix it for me. I just had to pick a color. Argh. Well, I knew that I wanted the room to be brighter. That's one of the things that I liked about the room when we bought the house. Of course, at that time, it was an almost white color. I thought about painting it yellow like our living room (which I love), but then I would be a bit stuck with bedding options in the future. I finally settled on a color...Oatbran. Yep...the same neutral color as our hall and bathrooms. A neutral color just like we were running from in the first place. But you know what? Now I can pick whatever bedding and curtains I want...and they'll all work!

For now (given that we've got a baby on the way and things to do to get ready), we will just be putting all the same stuff back in the room. But eventually, I plan to redo some things. I am hoping to get things put back together in the next day or two, so I'll get an "after" picture up as soon as that happens.