Living room

I've been busy nesting in my new condo. I've painted the living room and make stuff room. This past weekend I did the living room. I used the textured fresco technique from Sherwin Williams. I was going to do a faux Venetian plaster look, but decided I liked the textured fresco just as well and it would be easier. The unfortunate thing was I didn't like any of the colors in the premixed options at S-W.

At the store, the clerk told me to just pick whatever colors I wanted. So I just jumped in and did. All the premixed options were on the same color cards, just different values. So I picked what I thought would get me close to the Venetian plaster look that I liked from Behr. Just blindly jumped!!


So the technique is to paint a coat of dimensional basecoat on. It's the consistency of meringue. You roll it on with a sponge roller and then just a trowel to knock down the texture a bit. The S-W sales clerk said this should be fine on heavily textured walls. He was wrong. My walls are almost like popcorn ceilings, except on the walls. The dimensional basecoat wasn't really thick enough to cover up the popcorn effect. I should have done a little more research, but it all runs together when you look at a bunch of techniques. If I had to do it all again, I'd use joint compound, and take the time to do as many coats to completely cover the popcorn texture. But, I was able to get the dimensional basecoat on and was satisfied with the result.
Two coats of a basecoat were up next. I was going for a golden color, so I picked a light yellow and one darker. The light yellow looked a lot like mac 'n cheese. It did dry a bit darker and I felt like I was on the right track.

Last up was a glaze coat. I mixed up the darker yellow/gold to two parts glaze. I just wiped it on with a sponge and wound up with a warm lovely color!

I love that once again I trusted my instincts and wound up with a wonderful color.

I finished off the room with an olive on the bottom. I plan to add a chair rail. The living room was a dark sage/olive color. It didn't seem terrible, but there was a lot of grey to it, and it was a lot darker than I liked. I couldn't believe how grey it was when the olive was next to it. Color is so fascinating.

All in all I've wound up with a color palette I really like. I can hardly wait to get the chair rail up! And I clearly picked a color palette that complements my current decor. :-D