Old House Diary: Paint with All the Colors of the Wind or Green

The time has come to choose a paint color for our front hall of our 1870 house that we purchased about a year ago. The story in a nutshell is the house suffered through a bad divorce and the recession of 2008. It was empty and abandoned for three years. It needed some TLC. We had nothing better to do and here we are.  

I have grandiose schemes for the front hall. First of all, this room has never looked right to me. I think it's the dark wood colored upper chair rail or picture rail.

Here's a picture from last Spring Break when we took a week off to start cleaning it to be move in ready. It's just white with dark trim. Doesn't work. 

So long ago, when we traveled to Natchez for the Spring Pilgrimage. We stayed at a beautiful mansion Monmouth Plantation. It had a stunning mural in the front hall. The definition of grace and elegance to me. Perhaps it is wallpaper. I'm not sure. Anyway, the home was a wonderful B&B. The mural has stuck with me.

I said my plans were grandiose for a girl from the middle of America. So once you lay eyes on a mural like that, AND then you get the canvas of a front hall needing a little TLC. Well, a mural is my grandiose plan. 

It may take me years. 

Meanwhile, like many project, we take baby steps. So to get started, we are going to paint the bottom half a dark green of the ground and the top a blue that can someday serve as the base for clouds. 

Through much trail and error and an informal vote of people who stopped over for St. Patrick's Day. I've landed on Relentless Olive by Sherwin-Williams, SW 6425. It seems to go best with the Rookwood tiles in the adjacent Music Room. 

For the upper sky base color, my friend Abby who is a designer and knows colors suggested Sherwin-Williams Krypton, SW 6247. And she knows her stuff.

Some additional mural photos collected below.

Our mural inspiration comes from this painting by Jim Effler, the artist who paints the Moerlein Beer labels. I think we will do images in this vein along the walls. The colors we chose also pick up this painting as well.