French Country Cottage dreams AND a Sherwin-Williams giveaway

If you are new to my blog- you might not know that when we moved into our home

 the grooved knotty pine wood walls everywhere you looked

were a huge selling point for me.
I love them and knew that they after a little bit of paint- they would be perfect

Gallon after gallon of paint, one room at a time
we painted those wood walls to add some much needed light to the rooms
and I love how they turned out. 

Well, I love how most of the rooms turned out...

 I have a confession.

In one of the rooms, I used an off-the-shelf, pre-mixed white paint.

I know.

What was I thinking?

Well, first- I was on a time crunch with out-of-town guests coming and so white was easy.

But, I wanted the 'perfect' white.

 With just enough warmth to brighten a room but not too much of a yellow undertone

 to make it looked aged.

I started with taping paint chips to the walls and staring at them for hours. 

Eliminating that one and adding that one back in. 

I wanted to choose something perfect but I was under pressure to get the guest room painted before guests arrived. 

So yes, I walked in and bought the white right off the shelf.

After quickly painting, I tried to embrace that stock white-

 but the blue undertone was too cool for me to love.

 So, that neglected guest bedroom has been patiently waiting for a makeover into a charming French cottage guest bedroom 

and you guessed it, it is finally getting one.

Here's the before- and the before -before showing the room.

 Before- before- when we toured the house.

Those knotty pine walls were dark, dark, dark and the ceiling was as well.

You can see just how dark they made the whole room.

 What it looked like after the off-the-shelf white, paint-it-quick coat

Brighter and cleaner but basic and bland. 

I didn't love the blue undertone but  since it was a room that wasn't used but once in awhile
 it has sat on the back burner for getting a new look.

I was excited to have the opportunity to work with Sherwin-Williams on a paint makeover
and I had an idea of what color I was leaning towards.
 Actually, I had an idea of a couple colors that might be perfect and I tried them out before I purchased any paint.

Nope- I didn't paint the room in samples to see what I liked. I tried something different.

I used the Sherwin-Williams Color Visualizer.

Talk about awesome-
 you simply load a photo of your room into the Color Visualizer and choose what color you would like to try on your walls and drag the paint color to your photo.

For the first color- I picked SW 0028 Caen Stone.

  I simply dragged the color to the wall, and then it showed me a preview of what my room will look like. You can drag the color to several walls- the ceiling, the floor- truly easy.

Up next- I tried a soft blue called SW 6534 Icy.

I have to admit- I loaded several different photos and played with paint colors for each of them.

I am loving it and will definitely use this tool over and over again. No more painting a whole room and standing back and hiding your face knowing the color is not the right one and it doesn't look like what you imagined.

I am excited to be using Sherwin-Williams Emerald™ paint for this project- which I have heard amazing things about.

So I am off to get painting and give this room the makeover it deserves and I will be sharing the reveal very soon! 

 You can follow Sherwin-Williams along on Facebook  and Instagram- and get sneak peeks at trends, colors and possibilities. They are a fantastic company and definitely so helpful when it comes to choosing paint or if you have a few questions about which one is best for your project. 

As well- how would you like a chance to enter to win a $50 Sherwin-WIlliams gift card?

Just leave me a comment on this post and tell me~

What room would you make over with Sherwin-Williams?

Sweepstakes Rules:
No duplicate comments.
You may receive (2) total entries by selecting from the following entry methods:
1.     Leave a comment in response to the sweepstakes prompt on this post
2.     Tweet (public message) about this promotion; including exactly the following unique term in your tweet message: “#SweepstakesEntry”; and leave the URL to that tweet in a comment on this post
3.     Blog about this promotion, including a disclosure that you are receiving a sweepstakes entry in exchange for writing the blog post, and leave the URL to that post in a comment on this post
4.     For those with no Twitter or blog, read the official rules to learn about an alternate form of entry.
This giveaway is open to US Residents age 18 or older. Winners will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by e-mail. The notification email will come directly from BlogHer via the sweeps@blogher email address. You will have 72 hours to respond; otherwise a new winner will be selected.
The Official Rules are available here.
This sweepstakes runs from 5/12/2014-6/1/2014.
Be sure to visit the Sherwin-Williams brand page on BlogHer.com where you can read other bloggers’ posts!


I was compensated for this post by Blogher but all opinions are my own, of course.

Enter your email address:


Delivered by FeedBurner