New Rule

So I have a new rule in my house:

To buy returned paint for $5 whenever I can. I'm one of those people who obsesses over paint colors for weeks and weeks before I can choose one. But I'm also one of those people who thinks that $50 is a lot of money (like, tons of money) which is about what new paint costs by the time you get the primer and the paint for one room. Or it could be $60 or even $70. I like nice paint (edit: decent paint. you won't find farrow & ball in my house. is that considered nice? i've never used it so i don't know. i've used sherwin williams and benjamin moore...oh, and glidden...so yeah, decent) But at this rate, we're never going to get anywhere with the house if we have to save and save for something like paint.

SO the cool part about Home Depot is that they have the $5 screw up section, where they put the returned paint and the mismixed paint. Don't get me wrong- most of the colors are horrendous. And I won't buy it if it's Behr (sorry, personal thing...I don't like the way it coats). But I can't help but to wonder what these people were thinking when they picked that shade of brown, green or orange. It's not going to look good on the wall if it's the color of a post-it note or a hangover! But some of the colors are really good. Last week there was a really great blue. I almost bought it but I couldn't figure out were I would use it and I didn't want to go overboard with blue in the house. Then yesterday they had this lovely grey by Martha Stewart. They wrote what color it was on top which was helpful, so I went to look find the color swatch "Chinchilla". I also found the color swatch for the grey we used in the living room (Glidden Canyon Echo) so I'd have a general idea of what it would look like in my house in comparison and so I could get a better feel for the undertones. Greys are so hard. But I think this one is a winner. It was a huge help to have these resources at hand- you should try it!

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So I wrote this post up but didn't have time to proof read or publish it before I had to leave for a bit. On my way home, I stopped in at a thrift store in search of some dining room chairs. I didn't find any, but I did find this cute little thing...


The coolest plant stand in the world:

Or at least what I'm using as a plant stand.

Isn't it so sweet? I was initially drawn to the color (the old enameled blues that tend to show up on old things are my favorite) but when I got closer I saw one of my favorite patterns:
 























I've always been a sucker for that circle pattern for some reason. I don't know why. I collect little things with that pattern so of course I had to bring it home. I originally thought about using it in the dining room, but it doesn't go as well as it does with the grey living room walls. But then when I was sitting here typing this post, I realized that I needed something for the corner in the hallway to hold one of my vintage fans. So that's where it ended up after I took the photo. Now it's the world's coolest fan stand, I guess. Either way- it's awesome. $9 wasn't too bad, I thought for sure it would be like $18 in which case I would have had to cry and walk away and then I'd be here telling you about it and eating massive amounts of chocolate. But at $9 I was totally smitten.


But anyway, that's all. I hope your day is going well. See you soon.