Part II on Painting the House

I love this article I read today on Scott Adams' blog about picking paint colors for the interior of a house. It is so true.

http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/picking_paint_colors/

"Tragically, our house also has an interior, and apparently it's a tradition to paint those walls too. I have been informed that many of our room colors need to be different from the others for reasons that my boybrain cannot comprehend. And maybe we need some accent walls. And it all has to match the baseboards, counter tops, cabinets, floors, drapes, area rugs, and furniture. Okay, that seems doable, sort of, until you toss in a few more
variables:

1. The paint has to be zero VOC (little or no off-gassing). It's my own requirement. That severely limits choices, and faux glazing is impossible.
2. We don't have furniture picked out. Or drapes. Or rugs.
3. We have only tiny non-representative samples of counter tops.
4. The paint color changes dramatically in every type of light.
5. The paint color changes dramatically depending on what it is near.
6. Every family member has a different opinion.

"Does it sound impossible yet? Wait, there's more.
...

"When you see a color on a tiny swatch, it might look tan, for example. But when you paint it on a wall it turns yellow or green or red. And not just a little. The wall color will have almost no correlation to the sample you picked. It is pure randomness.

...

"So it's a bit like the game Battleship, where you drop random depth charges on the color chart and see if you can narrow down a zone where the good color is hiding. Except in this case the person you are playing against is both blind and lying.

"All I know is that if we find even one color that doesn't look like a jaundiced albino rat when applied to the wall, I'll be lobbying hard to paint all the rooms that color and buy only black furniture, black drapes, and black rugs. I hear black goes with everything. Wish me luck."

Thank you, Scott, for helping me know I'm not crazy. I watched hours of Design Star and HGTV vidoes to give me some clue of what I was doing when it came to picking colors. I wondered if I was going to lose my mind. There are so many variables to consider when painting, which I only began to appreciate after I had started. And once you start, you really can't stop.