Brown
I have been working on another agonizing problem while recovering: finding the perfect brown for my dining room.
The dining room is empty because we have been having the floor resurfaced, and we had two weeks of not having any contractors in the house to get annoyed at me for painting. I seized the opportunity.
It needed repainting so badly. It was a mess.
I wanted to paint it brown. It’s supposed to be Alice in wonderland woods there. I couldn’t go with a normal or dark brown because the cabinets are too dark of a green. I needed a light brown that looked decent with my yellowish wood floor AND the deep green kitchen cabinets.
The problem is, the lighter the brown you get, the more it just… isn’t brown. It’s light orange or pink or grey or green. I did not get this at first. I thought all these ostensibly brown colors understood the assignment.
I got ALL the brown sample cards from Ace Hardware and Sherwin-Williams. More than once. I put them to the wood. I put them next to the cabinets. I taped them to the walls in four different places and tried unsuccessfully to imagine what they would look like on the wall. I asked everyone’s opinion over and over and then ignored them over and over. I went back to the hardware store so many times that they now know me and feel obligated to talk to me, which I hate. I went through six paint samples and disliked them all.
The answer was lucky number seven. It’s called Patton Buff. I had already prepped everything by that point. I painted the room with trepidation, having doubts.
But it looks good! It looks like a warm biscuit.
In my heart I want a deeper brown, but I know it has to be light in that room. Absolutely everyone told me this when they sensed that I wanted to go darker. Okay okay, I will settle for the happy biscuit.