Leprechauns must have invaded our home last week and sprinkled green dust on me while I was sleeping.  On a whim, I decided our living room/office needed a green wall as a focal point.  I painted sample splotches of different greens on the wall behind the sofa. 

I decided on the far left color, Sherwin Williams Ryegrass.  In one morning, I had it painted. 

At first, I really liked it.  It was a nice punch of color to an otherwise neutral room.  But then the natural light that the room gets during the first half of the day started moving towards the back of our house, leaving  a much ‘greener’ green…see the corner?   

And it got more intense as night fell.  It kinda hurt my eyes.  I decided to sleep on it.  When I woke in the morning and came downstairs, I was pretending I had never seen the wall before.  So, as soon as I entered the living room, I thought, “Holy cow!  That is a GREEN wall!!”  It seemed so out of place in relation to the rest of our home.  Here’s the view from our dining area…

Layne even said, “Oh…my…goodness.”  I was pretty disappointed about the whole thing.  Because I really did love the color…just not in my house.  It was not something I could live with day in and day out.  Maybe it would have been better in a room with tons of windows, like this Apartment Therapy one:

It looks much calmer when broken up by lots of white molding and windows.  The pops of bright pink are a nice complement.  However, my living room has no white molding, only two windows and no bright pops of anything.  That must be where I went wrong.  So, the lesson here is just because you like the look of a room in a picture doesn’t mean you should paint a room in your home that same color.  The rooms should be similar in style and it should flow with the rest of your home in order to work.  Our living room is nothing like the Apartment Therapy room above and we have no other bright walls in our house, so this didn’t work for us.  Always stick to your idea book (i.e. your Little Black Book).  In hindsight, there are no green rooms in my inspiration folder. 

Still, I had fun painting the wall and trying something a little different.  In the end though, it was not something I could live with and look at every day.  I’m keeping my day job.  Sometimes finding out what doesn’t work for your home is just as helpful as finding something that you love.  I’ll be sticking to neutral walls and adding in color with artwork and pillows…something I know we can all live with.  And, in case you’re wondering, I’ve already re-painted the wall (well, the entire living room) in a neutral taupey-gray…I like where this is going…