Mise en Scène: Good Bye Ceylon

When we were building our house, I asked the builder if I bought the paint, could they paint it the color I chose? Painting the house while empty makes the most sense, especially when the painters are on site to provide the labor. Unfortunately, the builder was rather "off the rack" and the answer was no. The house was slathered with builder white. The color was not horrible, but the paint quality sure was! The paint spattered. The mess made just touching up move-in damage was insane. This paint had to go.

The very first room painted in the house was the family room. At the time, nearly fifteen years ago, the world was smitten with the colors used by a fellow Tulsan, Charles Faudree. Though he had begun to lighten his look from the Pratt and Lambert Ceylon Ivory and Algerian Red, the paints were still very popular. Had I had my way in that preconstruction meeting, the entire house would have been painted Ceylon Ivory.

Ceylon Ivory walls

Instead I settled for painting the family room and, after redoing it to fix the dysfunctional layout, the kitchen was painted with a base of Ceylon Ivory. Ceylon Ivory is a yellow based beige. It is a great cream, frankly, I'd grown tired of cream. In fact, the entire room needed a change.

The first change was the rug. previously, the rug was a Persian style, with a very eighties color scheme. The rug had seen better days.Plus, it had been a kitty favorite.

I fell hard for the Beni Ourain rugs, but the cost was over my budget and frankly, the shag can be a problem for mobility, not to mention fur ball removal! Let's just say that I can trip over a hardwood floor, a shag isn't the best option for our family room.

Wool is the best option if you have spills. Wool fiber is opaque and stains are better hidden than with synthetics. The rug I opted for a is a looped wool rug with a Beni Ourain style. What I thought was an off white rug with a deep brown accent was creamier than expected. In fact, the rug was very yellow in tone! **Le Sigh** I considered at least 50 paint chips, from which ten paint color samples were purchased to make large paint samples. And then we started again, almost serious about that. For others, rarely more than three colors need to be considered. But for myself, I line up all the 18 * 24 inch sample boards and squint. And squint some more. Finally, I settled on Benjamin Moore Elmira White, HC-84.

Then I needed to pick an accent color. Because, in addition to saying goodbye to the Ceylon Ivory, the accent color on the fireplace wall, Fennel, was going. Covering it with Pashmina AF-100, was harder than covering the Ceylon.

The furniture was pushed to the center of the room and the painting began.