Confessions of a Paint Swatch Addict: How We Almost Lost Our Minds Over White Paint

When you take a house completely down to the studs and rebuild it, everyone talks about how exciting a total clean slate is. Fresh starts and perfect new Sheetrock! What they don’t tell you is that a blank canvas can actually make you lose your mind. Between an absolute circus of white swatches and the fact that I'm currently experiencing some serious Smokey Topaz color-drenching FOMO regrets, the paint journey has been a total ride.

You would think picking a simple "warm white" would be easy. It’s really not. I just wanted a white that felt cozy but didn't pull a ton of ugly yellow. Luckily, a client of mine had two entire boxes of white paint samples left over from "her own white paint choosing nightmare", and I happily volunteered to "adopt" them—because apparently, a couple dozen shades of white just wasn't enough!

Between her massive stash of paints and the fact that we ended up buying about 10 more of our own, we had paint sample pots taking over every single flat surface in that house. 

Just ask our poor friend Wendy at our local Sherwin Williams store on Troup Hwy in Tyler https://www.sherwin-williams.com/store-locator/paint-store/tyler/tx/707044  she knows our faces all too well by now! 🤦🏼‍♀️😜   

I was always worried she would run and lock the doors when she saw us driving up again 😂

 

After staring at probably 20+ different shades of white on raw Sheetrock like a crazy person, we finally found the winner: Sherwin-Williams Shoji White. It's the perfect warm white without looking like a stick of butter.

But then... there’s the office.

This room is at the front of the house, and I had this absolute vision for it: lamps, soft lighting, and this gorgeous, deep, cozy, warm brownish-gold color called Smokey Topaz. I wanted it to feel like a rich, glowy spot to work from on a cold rainy day-

And what did we do? We chickened out at the absolute last second.

We got terrified it would look too dark, so we played it safe and had them paint it Shoji White with Accessible Beige trim. And y'all... I am majorly regretting it! Total paint regrets. I am staring at those safe white walls and feeling that FOMO big time. 😂 

BUT! I do have a secret weapon up my sleeve to save the room. Even though we chickened out on the dark paint.....

I am officially bringing grasscloth back! We are doing one full accent wall in grasscloth texture to give it that cozy, high-end vibe anyway.

I ordered the grasscloth from my sweet friend Sandy Bennett over at Designing Women House of Design right here in Tyler. She is hands-down one of my absolute favorite people to do house design business with! She got everything ordered for me, and even better, she has a fantastic, expert paper hanger lined up who is highly skilled with grasscloth. If you've ever worked with it before, you know that not just anyone can hang grasscloth right—it takes a true professional to handle that beautiful texture!

The funny thing is, there’s technically still time to change the paint before we move in, but I just don't know if we have the courage to do it yet.

So, tell me the truth in the comments: 

Do we need to just bite the bullet and paint that office Smokey Topaz, or will Sandy's gorgeous grasscloth wall save me? 

And what's your biggest paint regret?