Remodeling 100 Year Later
Remodeling my 100-year old home included painting walls. Wall color choice was a challenge because the house is small. Plus, opening the main half of the house removed single separate room paint options. Taking out a wall between the kitchen and the dining and living rooms while closing a small hall doorway to the master bathroom made opening another doorway fun. We discovered the original architect’s design by accidentally choosing what was the original opening. It had been closed with dry wall. First removing that dry wall was too simple because there were no wall studs where the doorway had been. With the first strike of the dry wall, we wondered why no studs as we noticed the trim was different there. What a delight to find the beautiful oak flooring ran right through that original doorway to what became the old-fashioned parlor again!
Which Color?
Rather uncertain how to invite color to open my well-windowed small home, I decided to try paint samples to finalize my color choices by how the light affected the wood flooring and the lighting from tall windows and ceiling fixtures.
Interestingly, the newly refinished oak floors reflect the paint color in surprising ways. One color might make the wood tones richer than another wall paint color that subdues the beauty of the oak. Not expecting that effect, I tried far more color samples than anticipated. Applying samples of the desired paint before painting the entire wall is very helpful. With wood flooring, narrowing the color selection ahead of time is wisely frugal. I went through so many samples that I have an idea to paint a room or a wall with patches of the various colors sampled. Paint sample charges being rather significant, the thought of not wasting good paint spurs the wild wall-painting idea.