Do you remember two months ago when I fell down the stairs with my foot still caught on the rubber dinosaur that caused the fall, so that it got left behind me and I landed on top of my ankle? No, probably not—I mean, _I_ had to look it up. Anyway, that foot has been SLIGHTLY hurty and SLIGHTLY swollen ever since. But I couldn’t quite get up the resolve to go to the doctor about something that was only SLIGHTLY bothersome, and besides, I couldn’t think of anything bad it could be. But then it started hurting and swelling a little more, and I noticed a bony bump up higher on my calf, so I finally went to the doctor this week.
I get to wear an air cast for two weeks. I’m not sure why, though: the doctor I saw speaks English only partially, and I was already in High Anxiety mode (social contact! uncertainty! doctors! stress about correctly communicating the exact nature of the problem! stress that it was silly for me to be at the doctor for this! stress that they would do a dozen tests my insurance wouldn’t pay for and then say “Huh! Looks fine!”) so I had trouble listening ANYWAY. She also told me to take three ibuprofen four times daily, but it doesn’t HURT enough for that, so I don’t really want to take a whole bunch of ibuprofen for nothing—but did she mean to bring the swelling down? I’m not sure. THIS IS WHY I HATE GOING TO THE DOCTOR. But I have my air cast on. I have to wear it with lace-up shoes, and normally I wear mary janes, so I feel weird.
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Next, if you think choosing paint colors is about as exciting as watching those paint colors dry, then you can safely skip the rest of the post: that’s all there is, is more dithering about shades of yellow. There’s no third section with something more interesting in it.
You may remember my nice understated yellows (and for those of you who thought they looked like bandaids, I direct you to Favorite Paint Colors (THANK YOU OH BRILLIANT ONE), where she has a photo of a room done in Manila Tint, the most bandaidy of the colors, which on the wall is a very pleasant non-caucasian-flesh-toned yellow (and in fact, too yellow for me to like it).
ANYWAY, it’s a moot point because Paul says he doesn’t want a warm soft muted yellow (I tend toward brownish ones that have words like “honey” and “pollen” and grain” in them), he wants a SHOCKING INTENSE YELLOW. He said “Like the orange in our bathroom, but yellow.” The orange in our bathroom is almost NEON in some lights.
Well. The thing is, it turns out I like yellow less the clearer and more crayon-like it gets. But HE doesn’t like lilac, and he nevertheless pushed us to use the glowing lilac I liked in our computer room, just because I liked it. So I am inclined to Go With This—especially since even though I’m not crazy about yellow, if we’re GOING to do yellow I prefer shocking over pastel. However, I would like to steer us away from Child’s-Paintbox Yellow and toward something more like College-Team-Colors Gold. Here’s a screen shot from Behr.com, where you can use their ColorSmart program to try colors on walls. This one is called Twenty Carat 310B-6, and don’t scroll too far because I want you to first see this one alone without the yellow that comes after it:
I vastly prefer that sort of color to bright crayon/daycare yellow, which to me is more like this (Vibrant 370B-6):
(And if you’re thinking, “Wait, WHAT?,” it might be that we have different impressions of colors but it’s even more likely that our monitors have different color calibrations: these colors on Paul’s computer looked SO DIFFERENT he had to use my computer. ((We tested which person’s computer was “right” by plugging in colors we’ve already used. His computer showed our bright orange as a sort of pinkish melon.)) )
That second one makes me feel depressed (I know, I know, who feels “depressed” in the face of SUNSHINE YELLOW? I don’t get it either), and it looks like a nursery or a classroom or a library children’s room to me—one in which the painter underestimated the impact of the yellow they were choosing. The first one, I can live with and maybe even like: it looks orangey compared to the second one, but of course the second one would not be present for comparison so no problem. But I showed them to Paul, and indeed the second one is what he has in mind, and he made a subtle dissatisfied/resigned face at the first one.
This is for your bedroom, right? I think I’d be really reluctant to choose an anxiety/depression causing color in the room that is supposed to be the most restful in your whole house. Hopefully you can find something that you both like!
the ibuprophen is not just for pain – but is more likely for the swelling.
you should take it.
Ibuprofen is an anti-inflammatory and a pain/fever reducer. Even if you don’t have pain, it should be taken to help reduce the swelling.
Hey there! First time reader, first time commenter. :)
So, a question that I can actually answer (with my limited, sketchy, PLEASE DO NOT SUE ME) medical knowledge! The ibuprofen is to decrease the inflammation and help things heal up more quickly, not really for the pain. So, like Anonymous said, go ahead and take it.
For the paint colors, I don’t really like either one. Lol…way to be difficult and not helpful in the comments, huh? I think I could do a brigher yellow (like what Paul likes), but that second one kind of hurt my eyes. You are awesome for letting him have the choice, though, since he consented to let you have the lilac in the computer room.
I’m going to chime in with the folks telling you to take the ibuprofen. Sometimes swelling can get in the way of letting things heal.
About the yellow…while I love bright colours I’m not sure I’d want to go with yellow in the bedroom, it just doesn’t seem very restful. Do you have to paint the whole room? We wound up going with dark blue in the bedroom, but we only painted two walls – the other walls didn’t really have much surface area to pain (window on one, closet & bedroom doors on the other) so they’re mostly white, and the colour is still vibrant without being totally overwhelming. I guess it depends on how your room is laid out. Can you not come up with some sort of compromise like the boys had…you get one wall, Paul gets one wall and you agree on a third colour for the other two walls… ;)
Do the gold! We painted our son’s bathroom a yellow very similar to the second one, wanting cheerful and bright and crayon-y, but once it was up on the walls it felt weirdly cold and horrible. The gold-ish yellow will give the right effect for bright-&-cheerful.
Swistle, am I right in thinking you are a bit yellow-y in skin (hee. i typed ‘shin’. A subtle comment on your poor leg.) tone yourself? (I am. Kudos to my German/Dutch heritage!) If you are, the bright yellow? Is going to make you look tired and old and slightly sick. Get a BIG paint sample and hold it near your face!
Has everyone beat it into you enough yet to take the ibuprofen for the inflammation? Aren’t you glad you mentioned it now?
I would do the first rather than the second color. The second reminds me of a story I had to read several times in college lit classes called “The Yellow Wallpaper” about a woman who went insane. Not that I think you’re crazy or anything. But I don’t want the yellow to make you that way.
I really like the first color as well. The second is a little too bright for me; especially in a bedroom. Maybe in a kitchen or something. And I think Jess’s suggestion of holding a big paint chip by your face to see how it looks is a good idea.
Good luck!
Vote TO take the ibuprofen, for all the reasons specified above.
I actually preferred the gold until I opened up a second window in order to pull the quilt into the comparison. With the quilt in the picture, I prefer the yellow.
I prefer the first one (collegiate gold). Hands down.
But when we moved into our home we had a bedroom upstairs that was Crayon. Yellow. and quite shocking really. Instead of painting the entire room a new color (becasue we were doing that in every other room of the house, no exceptions), I did a white wash over the yellow. Just watered-down white paint that I “painted” on with a rag. And I ended up really loving it. It was still bright, but the white wash took the edge off and made it very sunny. Plus it added a little interest
I only mention it because it might be a nice compromise.
Or pick the bright green or chocolate brown in your quilt. Because those colors are awesome.
I wanted to vote for the second yellow at first, but then someone commented on your skin color and how this yellow would make you look tired or something like that. Wow, I never thought of how a wall color can affect how you look like! So now I’m more for the first color.
I like the first one a lot. If you go for one of these, does this mean a new bedspread? I think black/white/gray looks great with yellow, especially with a pop of red here and there. If you are stuck with a wall color you don’t love, I think that means you get to buy some new things to make up for it :)
Thought this link on color psychology was kind of interesting:
http://www.infoplease.com/spot/colors1.html
Maybe you could use it to talk Paul out of the brighter yellow?
I agree that the ibuprofen is for swelling as it’s an anti-inflamitory as others have said. I hate going to the doctor too, and ALWAYS leave with a whole MIND full of questions that I didn’t get answers to.
Also, I like the yellow in the 1st picture better. I’ve painted with yellow before, and one would assume that ANY yellow will seem warm and bright, but I can tell you that shades like the 2nd color will look almost icy and cold. I also liked all of the colors you showed the other day…
The first yellow is warm with brown undertones. The second yellow (that Paul likes) is cool, with green undertones. Cool yellows can be hard to match, and make your skin look sallow. Could you try a more intense green-yellow (I’m thinking of Behr’s citron green 400B-4?), since Paul likes the yellow with green undertones?
There’s always white :-)
I’m with you – I much prefer ‘wheat’ and ‘straw’ yellows to ‘sunny’ and ‘cheery’, especially in the bedroom. I like how the brown armoire in the top picture anchors the really rich colour. In the top picture, I see a nice room – bold, but warm. In the bottom picture, I see YELLOW! WALLS! before anything else.
Would it be too awful if I said that the first room just screams SCHOOL BUS to me over and over again in giant capital letters?
Probably, yes.
Sorry.
God, it’s so funny how these things are completely subjective but also seem so completely obvious.
OF COURSE the first one is better than the second! How could anyone possibly prefer the second one, which screams “daycare” and “crayola”? I absolutely love the first one, which suggests sunshine and brightness, but then again I am a Yellow Person and I get that not everyone is.
I recognize that there’s no “right” here, of course, but it just seems so… yeah, obvious. :)
I like the first one – VERY much. I think it looks classic. The second is vibrant and more appropriate in a child’s room than a master bedroom. First one for sure!
Okay I have no flippin’ clue what you are going for here so I’ll start with:
I LOVE the first yellow. On my computer it is more yellow than orange but definitely has orange tones in it. But this from the girl who has “Burnt Pumpkin Spice” as her bathroom.
I will say that we did my husband’s bathroom at our old house in “Carribean Sky” which was BRIGHT, and EYE HURTY and everyone had the initial shock factor of wow that’s cute. But it was very little-kiddish to me.
But I like the browns and oranges, and darker greens and grays so you may just want to skip this whole comment =)
Just wanted to agree with you on the going to the doctor anxiety. I try to reasonably assess the situation beforehand, but usually end up wrong: when I think I’m going in for something worth being concerned about it’s “yeah, that’s normal (you big wuss)” and I feel stupid for wasting their/my time, when I think it’s probably nothing and don’t go in right away, it’s “For how long? Why didn’t you come in sooner?” Can’t win!
so i realize you need Helpful Internet Help! like you probably need a hole in the head, but i went and played on the behr website too (FUN!) because, um, clearly paul is slightly unwell to request that second yellow. :)
how about “Sun Shower 370B-5”? still very “yellow!” without being “i’m going insane in a pre-K classroom!”
That favorite paint colors site is such a brilliant idea. Crazy smart. Here’s something about bright yellow: we painted one of our bathrooms bright yellow (more like the second photo: http://www.stimeyland.com/2008/01/from-sun-to-rotten-egg-yolk.html), and it is BRIGHT, like inside of the sun bright. I love it for our bathroom, but am not so sure I could hack it for a whole room. Although it might actually be better for a whole room, because the walls are farther apart.
Picking paint colors is really, really hard.
I know what you mean about doctors. I finally made a follow up dermatology appointment after my regular doctor recommended it, like six months ago. Maybe more. Doctors are stressful.
I’m going to side with Paul on this one. Our living room is practically the same color as the first photo & while I loved it when we put it on 3 years ago, I have spent the past 2 trying to decide what to replace it with.
Every single photo I take in that room (75% of all my photos) requires editing or we look like the Jaundice Family.
I think that second color, being cooler would help reduce that problem
Lisa is right about the green undertones in Paul’s preferred color. Is that his absolute “What I Want” or just closer?
http://www.properhunt.com/2010/07/do-you-remember.html
If you’re going to go for a strong color like that, paint samples on cardboard. Really intense colors need a special primer and two coats, and if you’re going through all that, you want to be sure it’s right.
Leeann- I was thinking “BULLDOZER!!!”
I think it’s because the second yellow is Not Very Restful, whereas the first yellow is kind of opulent. Know what I mean?
Slim- Just BASICALLY what he wants. He also listed a few others that were pretty much the same.
Lylah- YES I agree! The second one looks like PLAYTIME and ENERGY and LOUD CHILDREN’S CDS! The first one looks like luxury and delicious foods and…well, bulldozers, but bulldozers are EXPENSIVE
I like yellow walls so we have many. May I recommend Cloudy Amber as a bright but with a bit of brown yellow (it’s from Lowes–likely Valspar)
Alternatively my daughter’s room and our hallway are Laura Ashley paint colors–shades of Cowslip (I think 3 and 4) which is more YELLOW than Cloudy Amber but still quite pleasant.
Yellow is SUCH a hard color to get right. I spent months with yellow swatches for Eli’s room, and cut it down by half a gallon of white paint after I started painting, and I’m still a little “hmmmm” on it.
BUT I agree – the second color is very Church basement nursery to me.
I don’t know if anyone mentioned this yet, but room colors do have psychological effects and irrationality, depression, and anxiety are some of the possible effects of yellow. So if that second color makes you feel depressed just looking at the computer, consider how much more you would feel that in a room that color.
I’m not a big fan of yellow myself (in fact, in our last house we painted the WHOLE HOUSE interior because the color had yellow undertones. Seriously.) But I do like the first color WAY more than the second.
I hate going to the doctor. Haaaaate. So much that I try to always write a list – in advance – of questions to ask the doctor so that I don’t chicken out when faced with a full-blown case of white coat hypertension… And then I usually chicken out anyway leading to lots of disappointed head-shaking from my husband.
Anyway, I hope the ibuprofen helps with the swelling and that your ankle feels better.
And for what it’s worth, I like the first color, which strikes me more as “marigold” than “crosswalk sign.”
Does the room get a lot of light? Because if it does, I can see that second color quickly going from “cheerful bright” to “the sun has exploded and you are now blind.”
I painted a room that second yellow once and it reminded me of mustard (it didn’t help that it adjoined a room painted in Ketchup Red).
I prefer the first color. Much more mellow and happy.
Yellows are IMPOSSIBLE. I recommend Benjamin Moore Light Yellow; it’s what we ended up with in the kitchen. Looks good under incandescent or fluorescent.
Yellow is my favourite colour, and my favourite version of it is the kind of intense gold you have in that first photo. The second one, though? Yikes.
Benjamin Moore Nacho Cheese might be a workable compromise – it’s a fairly straight-down-the-middle yellow, but it’s warm enough that I don’t think it would have the complexion effects of those slightly greeny yellows.
The first one looks more upscale/sophisticated. It could be easily muted with the right accents. I like it! I do not like the second one. You should push to win.
I like the first one. But it is our public school’s color (Gold and White!), so I can’t use it. You should.
I had a bright yellow bedroom in college that I loved, but the room was also approximately closet sized and I paired it with a fuschia bed spread; so you know…tastes and all that.
I find that a lot of blue tones bring me down so I vetoed that in our bedroom (not that we’ve painted yet.) We ended up agreeing on a gray color that has a cool undertone that is almost purple. Both the husband and I found it soothing.
If you find the bright yellow depressing, for the love of Pete DO NOT paint your bedroom that color. I vote for going back to the drawing board. I actually like both manila tint and the middle photo as well.
Good luck!
Sorry about the air cast! That stinks. The ibuprofen could be to reduce swelling, I suppose.
I love bright colors. All the paintings and Art Objects I have ever bought are always in vivid, bright, primary-ish colors.
But ACTUAL yellow walls just makes me cringe. I would really try advocating for the first paint color. It is plenty shocking yellow! But with depth and richness. Not flat. You know?
I wanted a color like that for my dining room but was chicken when it came time to actually choose – I picked a nice sunny yellow that ended up being FAR too pale and boring. I actually repainted the whole room a second time just to get a brighter, deeper yellow.
It’s actually two colors, one main color and a second darker yellow above the trim:
Pic from my blog http://bebehblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/diningroom3.jpg
More pictures in the whole house tour here: http://bebehblog.com/twitter-home-tour/
They’re both Behr and the upper color yellow is called Yellow Gold and the lower yellow is called Warm Glow. Both look sort of stupid on Behr’s website. So I’m going to be the voice of dissent and say I like your second yellow better – I feel like the first one is going to be really hard to match things to and maybe be too orange.
I think it’s admirable that you want to let your husband have this one, and I guess if it’s dark a lot of the time you’re in the room it might not all end in homicide, but good lord that bright yellow makes me feel stabby. Now that I’ve seen it, I have a whole new take on The Yellow Wallpaper — they tried to tell me it was about patriarchal repression of women, but I think the moral might have been never paint or paper a room in yellow.
Kudos to you for trying to reciprocate the husband’s nice gesture earlier, but I think the debate should still be open for a bit longer. I think it’s VERY important that BOTH of you should enjoy the color of the bedroom. And if the mere thought of his color choice mentally distresses you, well, imagine your frame of mind were you to live in that room. Ugh. I would fully explain to him that the color is not just a “Meh.” And keep compromising. Surely there’s gotta be something in between those two colors. Good luck!
For the record, I like the first one, too.
I think someone already mentioned this but yellow is NOT good for happy or relaxing or even passionate moods! I remember reading something when I was pregnant with my first baby, they said a lot of parents use yellow because it’s gender neutral but that yellow makes people irritable!
I’m here to re-suggest the paint-chip by face test. I painted my bathroom a vibrant green and looked ill for two years until I repainted it.
The day after I painted it green I saw myself in the mirror and thought, ‘Oh. This makes me look sick.’ and forced myself to go to a horrible party. The whole drive there I was thinking about how the anxiety of going to this party was making me queasy. We were there five whole minutes before I realized I actually was queasy and made DH drive me home (40 minute drive). Good thing too, because I ended up puking all over my green bathroom.
Anyways, it’s important to feel pretty in your bedroom. Make sure you like how you look by that colour.
The living room in my husband’s old house was that second yellow and I really didn’t love it. It made me feel just like you described, it was too much. I can’t completely get behind the first one, but it’s better, warmer.
If the amount of medicine feels like too much for you, you could consider taking fewer pills in each dose. I’ve had some foot problems that required an ibuprofen regimen in the past. The doctor also recommended frighteningly high amounts of medicine. I think I ended up taking something like 2 ibuprofen 2 or 3 times a day instead because it was what I felt comfortable with and then also tried to be super-nice to my foot. It healed up just fine in about 3 weeks, even on the lower amount of medication.
In our old house our room was a more muted yellow, but in this house our living room and hallway are Behr yellow. Very yellow. I love it.
I do like the first one but like someone else mentioned, when I paired it with the quilt, I liked the 2nd one better. I don’t know about that yellow overall. I actually love this blue color by Benjamin Moore called Billowing Cloud but it won’t work with your bed (me and hubby’s first bedroom was painted this color). I know, I’m no help! I think I like your original 4 color ideas (the so called fleshy ones-haha). I kind of want my bedroom to feel like I am on vacation and softer colors definitely do that for me, especially blue. It’s a tough call and I hope you are able to find a good compromise.
I really liked the first one, and then I looked at the second one and suddenly the first one was orange. I know what you mean about yellow being depressing though, I don’t think I could have a yellow room…it feels like too much pressure.
Does Paul need the bedroom to be an intense yellow, or does he just want some room in the house to be an intense yellow? PPs, Thomas Jefferson, and I all have or had bright yellow dining rooms, and I loooove mine. But my bedroom is a soothing pastel.
I really like the more gold of the yellows. And I never understood why a sunshine beautiful color was said to cause depression. Weird.
But I think it would look awesome. As for myself, sometimes I think a deep dark teal color would be nice for a bedroom. Makes me feel sleepy. :)
Is an air cast a “pretend” cast?
Kacy- AHA HA HA!! That gave me such a funny mental picture of asking someone to “sign my cast” and then holding out my plain leg! Mine has a little straw for inflating it.
Take the ibu., it’s for the swelling.
I still vote for the green I wrote about!