Taking the Plunge with Deep Teal Paint in the Dining Room

Welcome to our dark dining room!

Yes, I held off the urge to paint for ONE FULL WEEK before I could wait no longer. It took three back-to-back-to-back nights of painting (one for the ceiling, two for the walls, the last of which lasted until 4 am), a TBD number of nights to recover, and the room feels totally different! Let's take a minute to appreciate these before/afters.

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I am realizing I keep leaving you with cliffhangers on paint color selections, which I'm sorry about and I really must stop doing. But if you recall the contenders were Night Train (which felt like the safe option, being a toned-down blue with lots of grey), or Polished Slate (a deep + rich teal and the only paint sample I've ever brushed on the wall and said, "wow, it's so beautiful!" at the first stroke).

Josh and I immediately and with great confidence agreed that Polished Slate was the color for us, and then I had a week's worth of second thoughts which prompted questions like, "are you sure it's not too much?" and, "should we find something more subtle?" and, "do I only want to do this because we just watched Home Alone and the McCallister's whole house has a Christmas aesthetic and we won't like it in the summer?."

It felt like a major life change to venture so far from white paint, but now that it's on the walls in here, I LOVE IT.

Here are the things I've most enjoyed about it thus far:

The color! I could legitimately get lost in it (when I say "could" I mean "have and will continue to"). Maybe my paint color selecting mantra from now on will be to not choose anything that doesn't make me stop in my tracks at the sheer BEAUTY of it.

Here, it's a deep and rich teal. Is it blue? yes. Is it green? definitely.

The feel. I had expected a big change in looks, but this room feels so different than it did before. It's more upscale than when it was an airy white room, but cozier and more inviting.

I love it all times of day, but evenings can't be beat. Mood lighting has never looked so good!

The trim. Deep teal is a perfect paint color for wood trim, which is something I never would have though had I not seen them together in person! I think it brings out the richness of the wood so nicely, and even though there's a lot that's dark in this room, it doesn't feel dull or foreboding.

I will not lie to you, part of my motivation for taking on this project during an already full month was to get this painted before Christmas so we'd have a rich and cozy dining room for all our Christmas week dinners.

My longer term plans with this room include a window treatment, removing the carpet and refinishing the hardwoods underneath, and sconces on either side of the piano. But for now, I'll just be gazing lovingly at this paint!