Chip It! (And the powder room plan)

Soooo…remember that loooong list I made weeks and weeks and WEEKS ago? Well, it’s still not done. Mostly done, kinda. But not done. I did get some big things off the list, and one of them was the powder room that’s been in shambles for well over a year now.

Shambles my peeps. A YEAR. Year and a half now? I thought it was less, but no. A good 18 months.

It started out like this:

It was fine for a while, but geesh, it was SO dark. And brown. With more brown.

And then one day I could not handle it anymore. The trim in here was never done to my liking (more on that in another post), and I was just SO OVER the chocolate brown.

So I decided to take the trim down and paint it. And I got as far as the ceiling:

It’s sat like this (notice the fan cover missing?), with meeeellions of holes in the walls, random stencils and curiously enough, those chocolate brown walls I couldn’t stand anymore (hmmm), for about six months.

This is because I came up with about 50 other things I want to do in this little room…so I kept putting it off.

Then last fall I was having a party and freaked out and slapped a coat of paint on the walls. And by “slap0 a coat,” I mean no cutting in, brown bleeding through, painted around the mirror and didn’t even take it down, “slap.”

 

And I thought that was better than the dark brown??? Oh my.

I liked this look so much, it stayed like this for nine more months. Did I say this room has been a mess for 18 months? I meant two years.

Anyway,  a couple weeks ago we had another party and I was SO fed up, I finally cut in and then took the mirror down and finished the first coat I started eons ago:

I didn’t even do the second coat though, because as I was painting I was deciding I didn’t want to keep it this color. That’s what it’s like living with me people…aren’t you glad you don’t have to? :) I mean really, it’s been two years, it’s time for a change.

Yes, I’m serious.

I am moving to gray/blue tones in the rest of the house and I want this little room to be FUN. So I found my inspiration for the FUN – a painting the Bub painted for me for Mother’s Day:

I know, it’s brilliant. I know.

I love the colors in the painting, and I am determined to use at least a couple of them. Bear with me – it’s going to be good. (In my head it is.) There’s lots more going on in here I’ll tell you about soon, but for now I need to figure out the perfect paint color.

That’s where Sherwin Williams comes in. They wrote me about their new Chip It tool and I tried it out and was HOOKED. This thing is fun fun FUN!!

To use it on your computer, just drag this little button to the tool bar (on my computer it’s the area right next to the box for web addresses):

 

It’s a lot like the Pin It button for Pinterest – it takes two seconds.

And then wherever you are online and find a photo you love and are inspired by, you can click that little button and “paint chip” it. They’ll give you five to 10 Sherwin Williams paint colors pulled from the photo. How cool is that?

IT’S AWESOME. You can upload personal pics, like I did using a photo from our recent vacation:

Or you can just use any photo you find while surfing the Net. This is one I found on Pinterest, and loved because of the colors specifically. The Chip It tool does all the work for you:

I love the Navel, Parakeet and Lagoon colors! I have had SW paint decks for years, and I’ve never seen those colors once – funny how you don’t see how well colors work until they are next to each other. I absolutely LOVE them together!

So I used a photo of my son’s Picasso-like talent art to Chip It again – and it pulled out a perfect reddish pink color:

It’s the Fireworks color and it’s not too red, not too pink (this is a room the hubby and kiddo use after all). I’ll have to take a look at in the room to see how it works, but I thought the Chip It pulled some really pretty colors from the art.

Isn’t that fun? I’ve been using this tool for a few weeks now and am so excited to keep going – it will be PERFECT to use while surfing Pinterest. Can you imagine?!

So, do you think I’m crazy for the blue/reddish idea? I swear it will come together…I’m willing to place bets. ;) At this point, I’m just happy that after three years I have a bathroom that has a fan cover and looks presentable, at least at first glance. Don’t look too close, please.

I’ll update you soon on the rest of the plan for this room! I’m REALLY excited about it! :)