Shades of Green

In my attempts to make this blog somewhat of a resource for you guys and not just documenting the excruciatingly slow progress that we are making, I want to share with you some of what I learn in the process.  For those that know me, you know it took a long time for me to pick a color to use for the stencil for my office wall.  I probably had close to two dozen different color swatches taped to the wall for several weeks.  I had two groups of colors, the more muted greens from the Ben Moore Historical Collection and more vibrant greens from their regular Color Preview Collection.  I was torn between feeling that I should use a muted color since the pattern itself was so bold and my usual love of more saturated greens from the first half of the twentieth century.

The bolder colors won out.  I decided to go with Stokes Forest Green and apply the paint in a brush-y streaky sort of style to soften its intensity.  I promise I'll have pictures soon.  Despite these colors looking like a color palette from Coastal Living with my current monitor settings (nothing against Coastal Living, they're just not my usual style) I swear the actual color swatches look just like colors I've seen in old houses that haven't been updated or even painted in 70 years.  There were two other greens, Egyptian Green (2043-40) and Green Gables (2041-30), that seemed like authentic early 20th century greens to me, but they were way too bold for the room and got eliminated in the first round.

So that's it, if you are looking for a green that comes from the time between the World Wars, here are seven good ones to choose from.