Happy Saturday everyone! I’m here on a rare Saturday because I need your input. Yesterday I brought the dresser into the bedroom and tried out the paint samples. As it turns out, I bought six instead of five. This worked perfectly because the chest of drawers has six large drawers.
These are all Behr paints from Home Depot. The colors on the left, from top to bottom, are Rococo Beige, Sandstorm and Sandstone Cliff. The colors on the right (top to bottom) are Casual Khaki, Studio Clay and Pure Earth.
Since I don’t have the chair yet, I stacked a few boxes in the corner and draped the curtain material over them. This fabric isn’t exactly the same color as the chair fabric, but it’s pretty close. And then I stood back and looked.
I’ll be honest. I have such a hard time dealing with neutrals. I try to imagine the entire dresser painted one of those colors and sitting in front of white paneling and none of that helps me.
I tried to get a few larger views from each direction so you could see everything together.
The only thing I could even imagine on the entire dresser is the darkest one on the bottom right, Pure Earth. I like it because it at least provides some contrast to the paneling. But at the same time I think it blends into the ground a little too much.
I don’t know why I find neutral tones on furniture and cabinets so difficult. Neutral paint colors on wooden furniture and cabinets are just not my thing. I can admire them in other people’s houses, but I almost never like them in my home.
So I don’t know what to do here. Should I try the darkest one? It would only take a few hours to paint the whole thing. Maybe I’ll be surprised and really love it when the whole thing is painted. I tend to doubt it, but there’s always a possibility.
Or should I do something more colorful, even if it makes the dresser more of an eye-catcher? I know I said I wanted to keep the focus entirely on the headboard wall, but if that means painting a slightly larger piece of furniture in a color that makes me feel like it’s sucking the life out of me, I might have to go a different direction with the dresser.
I really don’t know what to do here. I know that not everything has to be a central point in a room. I understand that. But at the same time, what do you do if you are simply not a “neutral” person? I don’t want to bring any more color into the room with such a large, dominant piece. And the room already has more than enough teal. This literally only leaves one option: orange/coral. I KNOW! I really got myself into a corner with this, didn’t I?
But I think I have to try. I may end up with a neutral dresser painted in Pure Earth, but I’ll regret it if I don’t try some orange/coral colors first. I’ll just have to see for myself if it would work.
UPDATE: I tried making a few models of the dresser in two different colors of coral and a green from the bird fabric. These aren’t great, but they at least give us an idea of what each one might look like.
Here is the lighter coral color. I took this color out of the carpet…
Here’s the darker one, which just has more orange and less coral. I also pulled this from the most saturated coral/orange of the rug. I think this might be a bit overwhelming.
And then I decided to try using a green that I pulled from the bird fabric. Keep in mind that there is no green in the carpet, so the only green in the room currently is the fabric with the birds.
