The Right Shade of Green

We've been working on our kitchen for 8 years.  I am not exaggerating!  When we moved in it had the obligatory flowery and viney wallpaper below the chair rail and textured yellow (kind of bright) on top.  I knew I wanted it a soft buttery yellow and I would hang my collection of blue and white plates.

But over the (8) years this project has been underway I changed my mind.  I started thinking green.  I saw green and blue combinations and thought the plates could still work. I got some green paint from a friend and painted a few sample patches.  Not quite right.  I looked at colors at the paint store but I just couldn't find the right one.

And then in Illinois I walked into Suzanne's kitchen.  I knew immediately that color was what I wanted!  So we painted a white piece of paper for me to take home and wrote the name and number of the paint on it.  I marched into the Benjamin Moore Store and said I wanted Seedling Green.  They mixed it, shook it, handed it to me and I left.  Why in the world I didn't look at it or have them paint a little on top of the can I'll never know.  It was most definitely the wrong color.  Sort of a yellow with a green tinge with a hint of flourescent quallity to it. Not What I Was Looking For.

So I went back.  The Benjamin Moore paint guys are my heroes because they found the color I wanted, refunded my money and mixed me new paint even though the mistake was my fault.  The color I wanted was "Seedling" not "Seedling Green." Oh.  So happily I skipped home with my new paint.

I started painting.  Hmmm.  It was close, but not the same. Too blue. Or something.  I stopped painting and let the patch dry.  My daughter came home and commented, "It's a little seafoam, isn't it?"  Now letmetellya....I got married in 1987.  I've done Seafoam. All my friends have done Seafoam. I am NOT doing Seafoam again! Back I went to my new home away from home, the 

paint store.  Here's the deal.  Every once in awhile they change something in the base of their paints. When they do this, they have to change the color formula so it will come out the "same" as before. But this time it didn't. Not even close.  But those great paint guys looked at the formula they had used and they looked at the formula that Suzanne read me off of the side of her paint can in Illinois and they fiddled with it.  We made little swatches on the edges of the original sheet of paper that we painted at Suzanne's.  Eventually, we got pretty dern close.   I brought it home, painted it on the walls, hung my blue and white plates. And I love it!

The only thing left to do now is get cabinet doors and drawer fronts.  Maybe by 2009???