Renovations at Sandringham Palace are moving steadily along. The grand office has finally been completed and we’re putting the final touches on the newly renovated schizophrenic front bedroom before we move in…just in time to enjoy the fire in the evening reading in bed. I’m personally looking forward to that!
The schizophrenic front bedroom clearly had other ideas about what colour it wanted to be painted. We thought green but after painting nine test versions of green we couldn’t choose the right colour. The office was easy. I wanted green. It unfailingly wanted blue. It won. The bedroom however wasn’t so easy to understand. In exasperation I choose gray. I wanted Weimeraner Gray but somehow I ended up with Depression Gray and to make matters worse I bought flat paint so that when we were finished with the room it felt like we were on the inside of a jail cell or the hull of a ship. Attempts at brining in the beautiful wood skirting and suggestions about painting the fireplace white didn’t alleviate the overall feeling of “oh my god this is horrendous”.
We spent the evening in the kitchen choosing yet another green. The one we chose looked beautiful in the light of the kitchen on it’s 2cm square of glorious colour however on the wall of the bedroom it screamed flouro-granny-smith-apple. It was nauseating at best and we only covered one wall before we stopped to regroup. Lesson #213269, ALWAYS GET A TEST POT.
Regrouping over a few glasses of wine Seb came upon the bright idea of mixing the gray and the green. It was tenuous at best but we really had nothing to lose except more paint and time. And the good news is that it worked. Now we have a gorgeous sage colour that we’ll never be able to replicate but hopefully we never have to. The room is soothing and the colour blends beautifully with the natural wood features.
The room was not done with us yet though. We still had to paint the fireplace surround. After thoroughly sanding the hell out of it we almost left it but then at the end Seb decided he’d like to paint it chocolate brown. Bad idea. It made the fireplace look like it was literally a chocolate mold. Fear that it was going to melt if a fire was started haunted us. So back to the white it was and with relief the room seems happy with itself. No more colour therapy needed.
