Color is one decision I’ve never had trouble making.  I am a very visual person.  That’s how I learn best.  I like capturing a moment on film. I like to wear lots of color. I arrange my clothes in my closet by color. The house I live in now is full of color.   I love color.  That is why I keep asking myself “Carrie why can’t you just pick out a color and go with it?”  Well I think I’ve figured that out!  I gravitate to bright, bold colors or rich, warm, deep colors.  The Sweet Flower Home farmhouse is not that house!  Chip and Joanna don’t use those colors in all their inspirational fixer uppers.  So as much as I would like to say this is a very Chip and Jo house I, Carrie, could not live happily in it.  Thus the paint dilemma!

Every time I had to make a paint decision I had to put a lot of prayer and thought into it and even more paint swatches on the wall!  I’m pretty sure the farmhouse was striped at one point.  Then finally I had talked so much about paint my Dad got involved.  Now mind you, he is 80, a cowboy farmer, an athletic genius, a great dad and grandfather.  But I can assure he has no flare for decorating or fashion.  I’m positive he doesn’t know Chip and Joanna live in Waco!  But what he does know is me!  His middle child, oldest daughter.  He gave me the simple instruction over the phone one morning “Why don’t you use yellow?  It’s your favorite color!”  Well I felt the same way about that statement as when he told my mom over the phone at the birth of our third child “What do you mean they don’t have a name for that little girl!  Tell them to name her Torey, I like that name, and give her the middle name of Lynn, that’s Carrie’s middle name and it goes together nicely.”  We promptly named our third child Torey Lynn.  So going on that advice from Dad I promptly called the painter and said I’ll have classic yellow in the kitchen, guest bedroom and hallway.

Well that was the easy one.  I do love yellow.  I decided that there would be a touch of yellow in every room of the house.  But I still had a lot more house to go.  Once again there were two easy decisions, the beautiful rich brown on the office walls, a bright funky green apple in the grandkids room and the laundry room and Swiss Coffee white on all the inside trim and shiplap.  The powder room is a white out from floor to ceiling!  Now the hard part was here.  My masterbath and guest bathroom are a soft gray.  Remember soft colors is not my usual, so the girls were afraid I wouldn’t like that in my master bedroom.  This threw me in a tailspin.  I began the search for taupe.  The color that is soft and transitional.  It can be brown when next to brown accents or it can look grey next to grey accents.  Taupe isn’t easy to distinguish.  I had a lot of stripes in the bedroom.  Those little cards of color look very different on a big piece of wall with lights and shadows.  Generally everything I kept picking was way to dark.  I was looking for soft and light!  Finally I found it!  The painters coated the room in a beautiful soft and subtle taupe that I couldn’t be any happier with!  Now the various large walls and hallways were a challenge.  It needed to be something that would allow the dark wood beams to stand out and still compliment the classic yellow as well.  We decided on a very pale tan that turned out perfect!  It sets off the different elements in the house beautifully!

Then came the big, bold, brave move!  I painted the outside white!  Yes white! Yes everything including the trim white!  Swiss Coffee white!  Did I tell you that the farmhouse is actually on a farm and the roping arena is so close that that I can see the Wrangler tag on the guy’s jeans? It is.   I was so hung up on the fact that the trim needed to be white so the rest of the house needed to be a different color that I couldn’t make a decision.  I couldn’t ever find a “good” tan.  Everything just looked dirty white.  If I went darker to a brown, then the beautiful wood beams disappeared.  I love those beams to much to do that to them.  When I really analyzed all the different elements that will be on the outside of the house a clean, crisp, bright white palette was exactly what I wanted.  I think the wood shutters, beams, black outside lights and white washed red brick are all going to pop against the white.  Once the landscaping comes in, it will look like a picture!

Color has given me a good challenge on this farmhouse. Thankful for Dad giving me the jump start!  I think it is a perfect balance of bright, bold and soft to make this home feel cozy to all who come and rest here!

Thank you for stopping by!  Be sure and leave me questions or comments on your color tastes!  I would love to hear from you!