Paint Sampling

July should be a busy fun month. I'll be working full time again with three wonderful little boys when their mommy goes back to work from maternity leave. And I've finally decided to paint the guest bathroom.

Ever since we first previewed this house before we bought it I've hated the paint job in the guest bathroom. It's gold and shiny and mottled and just ugly. I've said before that it looked like they took the extra paint from other rooms of the house and threw them all together in there as an afterthought. Not pretty. Not inviting.

Over the last few weeks I've been gathering paint samples to test in there.

Look at that wall color. Blegh.

This is actually my favorite part of the painting process. I absolutely love collecting those little cards and analyzing the nuances of daylight vs. fluorescent, getting ten different shades of light blue-green and deciding which one I want to live with. It's great!

Besides just picking one I like and will coordinate with the rest of the house, I have two other things to match.

This mirror.

These paintings.

The mirror came with the house and coordinated with the ugly gold paint, but I don't want to replace it. The painting were a garage sale find I came across in high school that I'm pretty sure are originals by someone in my hometown church.

I just need to find the balance of coordination without matchy-matchy-ness. Hmm...choices.

As a result of my love affair with paint samples, I have quite a collection of leftover cards. Also a crafter's heart. I have some ideas of things to make out of them, but what would you do? Ideas?