Color!!

If nothing else, I love Bamberg simply for the fact that they let us paint the walls in our house!!!  Having color on your walls makes such an AMAZING difference.  The best thing about it is that it was practically free!

They have what they call a Pastel Painting Program here.  They allow you to paint your house, from a pre-selected color palate and you don’t have to repaint when you leave.  They issue you a basic painting kit and they give you all the paint you need…for free!   

We invested in a better trim brush and two rolls of painters tape, but that’s it.  I can’t imagine them having a program like that in the states where sometimes families are only there for a few months or you have 10 times as many housing units to keep up with.  It makes sense over here though since you have 3 years, usually.   

I was beyond excited when I heard about the program!  A little nervous with the fact that it was called the PASTEL Painting Program.   I’ve never been a huge fan of pastels.  My heart even sank a little bit the first time I went down to the Self Help Office and saw the color options.  The five options are: beige, light blue, light green, light pink, and yellow.  The only color sample they have is on a two foot by 6 inch board that is posted on the wall in the office.  The lighting in there is terrible, so it was a little hard to tell, but I took a chance and started with the beige.  I had been debating back and forth in my mind for about a week if I was going to take a chance on the blue in the living room or not, but I suckered out and asked for three gallons of beige.  I figured if I still decided to try the blue I could break it up a bit by doing the dining room in beige.

In my opinion beige is still better than white!  I was still second guessing myself on my color choice so I decided to start with the beige in the dining room area and see how it actually looked.  Tim helped me get it up one night after the boys went to bed.  Overall, I like it.  I think it will go well with our dining room set.  To me it has a bit of a peachy tone to it.  It could just be the lighting and the fact that the floors have a warm tone to them.  Tim said I was crazy at first, but even Ryan woke up the next morning and asked why the walls were peach.  Depending on the time of day and from what angle you look at it depends on if it looks a little more tan, or more peach.  

After getting the walls in dining room painted I decided that I needed to take a chance with the blue.  So I took back my other two gallons of beige and exchanged them.  Tim and I had to “rush” to get it done that night since we got the call that morning that our stuff was going to come the next day.  We knew it would be much harder to paint once all of our goods arrived.  The blue looked almost annoying going up but it dried much nicer.  It was brighter than what I was expecting from his paint sample.  The blue still seemed a bit odd for a few days but sometimes I just think it takes a few days to get used to something.  Especially when it’s such a big color change.  It looks even better now that our furniture is here.  I can’t wait to share pictures!

I had planned on stopping with the living room, as I didn’t see how any of the other colors would fit in the boys’ rooms.  Plus a majority of their walls are covered by their bunk beds anyways.  After I got the blue on and I saw that it turned out a little better than I was expecting I figured I’d go ahead and take a chance with the yellow in our bedroom.  It’s definitely not the yellow I would have chosen.  It would have to be four or five shades lighter in order for me to love it. But it’s up and it’s staying up.

All in all, I am very pleased with the way it has turned out.  None of the colors are exactly what I would have chosen if I had the choice, but I am very grateful for the opportunity to add some more color to our home.  We’ve had white walls for far too long.  

The only other draw back is that it is all water based paint.  I had scuffs and marks on the walls before 24 hours had even passed.  Since it is water based, Mr.Clean’s Magic Erasers not only take off the marks, but the paint.  So I’ll be holding out as long as I can before the marks just about drive me insane then I’ll have to try and spot paint.  (Of course the ARMY’s version of ‘spot painting’ is painting the entire wall…so we’ll see.)