A really good friend is all you need (and some paint)

I have an ah-mazing friend who supports my not-so-random bouts of insanity. Not long ago I mentioned that I was ga-ga over everything from Dana's Everything Room... one of my favorite parts of that room, though, was the paint color.

Image from Dana's blog, House*Tweaking

The color is Besalt from the Clark and Kensington line at Ace Hardware. While I have heard of Ace Hardware, I had no idea where one existed. So over a lunch break I Googled the closest address and then drove there... only to find that the store didn't exist in that location. If you ask me, if you go to the trouble to Google something and drive there, it ought to have the decency to be there!  In any case, I said something along these lines to a friend of mine (ok, maybe I said that exact thing...) and she quickly Googled Ace Hardware and saw a location that was five minutes from her house. She offered to stop by and pick me up a quart of the paint.  Isn't that Ahhh-mazing!?!

The next day I was the proud momma of this: 

Oh, yes. But now, I have a dilemma. I'm not sure where to put it. I would love to make my dining room mirror a little bit of Dana's room. I've always had the plan to do a wall of built-ins with two tall pantries and a storage console in the middle, on my dining room wall. With all the light upstairs, the room can handle the dark color.  And I also would love to, someday soon, do a small frame/wall partition between my living room and dining room (because while I am a fan of open concept, I am not a fan of open concept. I need some division here, people!!) But that is most likely not going to happen in 2013. So right now, with no separation between the dining room and living room, I do not have a good starting/stopping point for Besalt. 

I also recently stumbled across a kitchen that has me a little more intrigued than a simple white kitchen, and when I saw this kitchen, I immediately thought "wow, that would really look good with a dining room painted in Besalt." 

Images from the March 2013 issue of Canadian House & Home 

The kitchen has some of the basic concepts I have been wanting to do with my kitchen: white cabinets, black counters, stainless steel... (oh yes, and let's not ignore that uber-cute black and white striped rug....) But what I really like about it is they also added a warm element of wood. And that rustic pendant light had me at hello. But can you see it too--a kitchen with those elements right next to a dining room with the Besalt paint and white cabinetry?!?!

The problem is, as I mentioned, I don't have the separation between my dining room and my living room. So were I to Besalt my house, I would actually have to paint an accent wall along the long wall in my living room. Which... would be fine... BUT... it would mean re-painting the entire upstairs (including some very tall 13' entry walls...) since the current color on the walls (Benjamin Moore's Titanium) doesn't jibe very well with Besalt.  Welcome to split-level living, people. I'm not too thrilled to rush into doing that. 

I also love BM's Titanium... you  might remember from an earlier post that my bedroom started out with Titanium, then the color moved into the upper level living area (Kitchen, Dining Room, Living Room).. and now... the color may be moving downstairs. Is that insane? That might be insane. But it SOUNDS logical when you consider that my upstairs area has lots of windows and light and can support a dark color, and my lower level has only one window in the Media Room. So really, downstairs needs a light color. 

The only thing is... there is already a coat of paint downstairs that is very lovely--Behr's Southern Breeze. I'm surprisingly reluctant to paint over it. 

Here is the paint palette currently happening in my house: 

1.)  Benjamin Moore's Titanium #2141-60: upstairs living area (Dining Room, Living Room, Hallway)

2.) Benjamin Moore's River Blue #2057-10: Chevron Wall in Kitchen, accent furniture 

3.) Behr's Southern Breeze #450E-3: downstairs Media Room

4.) Martha Stewart Living Lamb #MSL225: Doors and Trim

So now I have a decision to make, obviously...on whether or not Titanium moves downstairs and Besalt moves in. And I have to make this decision fairly soon because we will be looking to start renovations of my Media Room fairly soon here. I did paint a quick one-coat sample of Besalt on my dining room wall: 

(sorry, once again poor lighting and an inept photographer can't capture the color very well... next time I crack the paint can open I'll make a paint chip and scan it in!) 

What do you think, should Besalt move in?