KH: 50 Shades of Blue

I knew our plans for the exterior of our house so well. White brick, black shutters and black doors. Simple and solidified.

Until I got to the paint counter at Home Depot on Saturday. 'I want black exterior semi - gloss paint please.'

Wait.

No I don't.

I don't want that.

What was I thinking?! How could I be so wrong?!

I found my husband in the store and explained calmly to him that in fact I no longer want black doors. I want blue doors. Like blueish-gray-green doors. I think I even asked him "honey, how did I mess this up so badly?! I thought I knew what I wanted all along and I didn't!"

These are probably the most dramatic moments in our marriage. Me being indecisive, and him just nodding along. ha!

So, I ended up getting the color 'groundwater' By Sherwin Williams. I painted our doors and thought they looked good. Just good. That's it. Nothing spectacular. "Our house looks like an old lady lives here." I told Steven. I didn't want 'just good'. I wanted amazing - spectacular - OMG - beautiful!

I slept on it, well actually I didn't sleep because I was up all night wondering what the heck I was going to do about the front door color mishap.

The next morning I had to run to Ace Hardware to pick up some anchors for the shutters and I came home with another quart of paint. This time the color Atmospheric By Benjamin Moore.

You could hardly tell the difference if you didn't know they were different. But atmospheric (BM) reflects a green - gray tint to the blue, whereas Groundwater (SW) was BLUE blue. I wanted a gray blue, not a clear blue - and that's where it gets tricky!

Let's look at some different door colors I found on Pinterest that I was going after and compare the differences. If any of you are considering a blue door, this will be helpful!

My top 2 inspiration pictures

Blue Gray - Farrow and Ball

This was my original inspiration. However, I thought I wanted it more 'blue'. I would have just bought this color exactly, but Farrow and Ball isn't exactly easy to get ahold of. The interesting thing is that Farrow and Ball's Swatch, looks nothing like the door in the picture.

Blue Gray - Farrow and Ball

My other favorite inspiration picture was this adorable door by Cottage and Vine. According to Pinterest they used the color Stratton Blue by Benjamin Moore. When I was looking at paint swatches, I knew that I did't want this bright of a blue. So I went with a little darker shade. Below you can compare the 2 colors.

Atmospheric - BM (What I used) Stratton Blue - BM (Picture Above)

You can tell they are almost the same color, Atmospheric is just a bit darker, taking the 'brightness' out of the door when it was completely done.

Some of my other inspirational photos

As you can tell there are about a million different options! If you've ever noticed you can't find a paint color you want at the paint store, there's a reason for that. The displays only have a certain amount of colors in them, if you give people too many options the decision is harder. If you want a certain color you have to ask for them - such as Atmospheric or Stratton. There's also another great BM color out there - Azores. This is another one you probably won't find at Home Depot or Ace Hardware on the shelves.

Azores - Benjiman Moore

Here is what our door colored ended up. I think it will look more green when the house is painted. But I love it as of now! We still next to paint trim/house and I'm considering painting the concrete step. Thoughts?

We are painting our bricks white this weekend! I'm looking at Benjamin Moore Dove White, and Benjamin Moore Linen. Our door color (of course!) will look different once the bricks are painted white! We have our shutters temporarily up, but will have to take them down to paint the house.

I can't wait to see what it looks like, and share it with you all when it's done! Since it's coming up soon, I'll go ahead and show you a picture of what the house looked like when we bought it. You can laugh, I often do too! ha. I tell Steven all the time our house is so ugly!