Paul and I are having a difference of creative opinion. We have agreed to paint the bathroom. We have agreed that we want yellow. We have agreed that we want a STRONG, BRIGHT, DELIBERATE yellow. This is where we part ways, at nearly-adjacent paint chips.
Paul looks at my paint chips, which are rich and deep and golden, and says, “Those are like, ‘We wanted yellow, but we chickened out.'” I look at his paint chips, which are like a crayon labeled Yellow, and say, “Those are like ‘kindergarten classroom.’ Those are ‘toy bin.’ I can already picture that color all scuffy from kindergartner shoes.” I hold up a yellow gumball insincerely and say “So, THIS is what you want?” “Yes,” says Paul sincerely.
“Remember when my mom chose a color she thought was Crayon Yellow, and on the walls it was acidic and eye-hurty and it ruined every photo taken in that room,” I remind. “*Shrug*,” says Paul. “If it has the name of a citrus fruit in it, I’m not using it—that means it’s too green/acidic,” I warn. “Okay,” says Paul, as if I will have it my own way, which is the wrong way. “I like the yellow on that box,” he says, pointing to a children’s shoe box in the paper recycling. I say that this proves my point about Kindergarten Yellow: the box contained children’s shoes, and is covered with faux kindergarten drawings. We color-match the box: the matching color is called Lemon Zest. It shares a paint category with colors that include the words “Olive” and “Grass.” TOO GREEN. I counter-offer a color called Macaw. Paul notes that another color in that category includes the word “Tangerine”: TOO ORANGE. (Also, he raises his eyebrows so I appreciate the presence of citrus fruit in my own chosen category.) Choosing a paint color is like loading a dishwasher.
We look at a card between his and mine. It does include a “Golden Green.” Also a “Pineapple.” We reminisce about a former co-worker of mine who insisted pineapple was a citrus fruit. “It’s not,” I say. “It’s not,” says Paul. “Acidic, yes,” I say; “Citrus, no,” finishes Paul. We have agreed on this before.
There is a color on this card called “Sun Ray,” which seems promising: earlier Paul asked where was the SUNSHINE yellow. “It’s a little ‘School Bus,'” I say. “It’s a little ‘School Bus,'” says Paul. One shade greener and we’re looking at “Bright Star” (the sun is a star!)—but it’s right next to Citrus; also colors containing the words “Leaves,” “Grass,” and “Moss.” TOO GREEN.
Two shades less green and we’re considering “Empire Yellow.” “Hm,” we both say. We click on the option to try it in a room, but the bathroom options look nothing like our bathroom. I mean, seriously:
(image from Behr.com)
There is a HUGE difference between using that color in a large room with acres of uninterrupted wall space and using it in a room with little snippets of wall showing here and there.
But that’s YELLOW, by god. That doesn’t say “We wanted yellow but we chickened out.” Does it say “School bus”? Maybe. WHAT’S WRONG WITH SCHOOL BUSES, we wonder? Plus, THIS is a school bus:
TOTALLY DIFFERENT.
We have a bright yellow bathroom. It looks like the color you’ve posted. It’s the kids’ bathroom, so I love it that it’s bright and cheery, and I got to put a rubber ducky shower curtain up because the color matches, but….it glows. As in, I find myself going in to turn off the light that I thought some child left on and discover that it’s just the paint reflecting the sun coming in the teeny-tiny bathroom mirror. :)
This is like a short story! So much comes through and it’s so well written. I love it!
My middle kid wants to re-paint her room. It’s currently a lime green (and yeah, it totally glows), and she wants a “bright yellow.” She, however, is leaning towards a Gatorade yellow color.
Yellow is SO HARD. I’ve painted several rooms yellow and I nearly always screw up the initial selection. My son’s room I thought I had picked out the perfect bright yellow and it ended up looking like a traffic sign. Awful. I always get test cans now. Lesson learned! I have found that while I can love a yellow paint chip, the actual yellow I like in a room is much more subdued. If you decide to go with “wanted yellow but chickened out” I have been very pleased with Benjamin Moore’s Antiquity (it’s much more yellow than the cream it appears).
I painted my dining room (a couple of houses ago) a bright yellow. It was… the color of an M&M. I LOVED it. The only problem was in the early morning when the sun shined directly in the window. BLINDINGLY. BRIGHT. But otherwise? Gorgeous.
This is why my husband doesn’t get to look at paint chips. We initially choose a color together (green, blue…). Then I pick the color and show him that ONE option, and he gets complete veto power. If he vetoes, I pick another color and he gets to see that one. It helps that I care about it a lot more than he does.
This.
I spent YEARS trying to get my husband to AGREE with me on paint colors. Then I came to realize that his favorite color was generally “the color that’s already there” so, yeah, he gets to see what I chose, and if he hates it, I’d choose something else, but he’s yet to hate something – I suspect that either (a) he really isn’t that interested, or (b) he’s afraid that I’d make him paint the room himself. (I wouldn’t.)
Might I suggest a mustardy yellow? That is the colour of our kids’ bathroom — it was that way when we moved in — and I haaaaaate that colour, but it is inexplicably very kind to the complexion. Every time I look in the mirror I am startled by how pink and glowy and young I am.
Good luck with the paint color! I always get a little worried with the paint website’s sample pictures, so I usually try to google image search the paint color to see it in some real rooms. I tried to do that with your paint color, but all I came up with was lawn chairs. Cute lawn chairs, though!
You also might want to try searching for images of yellow bathrooms on Google/Pinterest to give you a better idea of what specific paint colors might look like in real bahtrooms. If you find another color you like, I know Home Depot will color match with Behr paint.
Well, if you want in and out of the bathroom quickly, yellow is perfect. If you want a relaxing experience, yellow not so much. (IMHO)
With seven people to get ready in the morning, I’ll bet you can guess which we’re going for!
You and Paul are my very favorite Internet couple.
we went yellow for our bathroom a few years ago. it ended up looking light a highlighter exploded. we couldn’t cover it up fast enough. and it was a bitch to cover up at that! good luck! ;)
Benjamin Moore Golden Straw.
It’s just a good mellow yellow (yellow enough).
I struggled with my kitchen paint color – all by myself as my husband goes with what I choose. BUT, the colors on the chips and in the cans looked vastly different than they did on my walls. After something like four paint jobs, which I did myself, I gave up and have been living with an ugly shade of green. Choosing paint colors sucks! I wish you well and hope your bathroom ends up more beautiful than my kitchen.
I totally agree with Shelly above from https://www.swistle.com/2014/03/17/choosing-a-paint-color-yellow/#comment-323556. Very favorite!
I like yellow and my experience with painting with it is that it always look much much yellower once it’s on the walls. I don’t think there is a shade that looks yellow on a paint chip that will look like you chickened out once it’s on the walls.
I painted a bedroom in our last house what looked like a soft buttery yellow on the paint chip, but ended up being a very sunny yellow once it was on the walls (it was http://www.benjaminmoore.com/en-us/paint-color/soleil ). To get that buttery yellow color in when I painted next, I had to pick a shade that seriously looked off white on the paint chip ( http://www.benjaminmoore.com/en-us/paint-color/ylangylang ). It looked perfect on the walls though. And just recently we painted our living room Benjamin Moore’s Warm and Toasty ( http://www.benjaminmoore.com/en-us/paint-color/warmtoasty ) and on the paint chip it looks like a muted gold. It doesn’t look very muted on the walls though, it looks quite yellow. So, in my experience, find a chip that looks like how you want it to look then go one or two steps more muted or neutral and then it’ll look how you want on the walls.
Heidi J has the right of it! *ALL* colors look brighter and bolder once they’re on the walls. The color that looks right on the walls will look too timid and washed-out on the paint card. This is why paint samples are so, so useful. You get to see how the color will look in your room, with your lighting, and your door/trim/accessory colors.
Almost every time I am looking for a new wall color, my first (carefully-selected, many-colors-compared-in-the-choosing) paint sample turns out to look way different in my house than I expected, and I adjust in the direction of mellower / toned-down.
Ultimately I have LOVED the colors I’ve ended up with, and been happy with them for many years, so I think my selection process has been successful. For me, yk.
I did a very similar yellow in a small bathroom once and loved it. The walls were white beadboard on the bottom, and your same bright yellow on top, and I loved it. However, the paint was Ralph Lauren, not my go-to BenMoore, and when I neglected to use the vent it would run. Into the little grooves in the beadboard. Yuck. Anyway, much of my house is currently Lemon Drop by BM, and although a citrus name, neither too bright or green, and I have picked it because it was my favorite drinks at the time, Lol.
I painted a bathroom yellow and it was like I was INSIDE THE SUN. I liked it though. My husband? Not so much. A year or so later he reprinted it a DIFFERENT yellow which was almost exactly the same. I still think it was ridiculous for him to do that. I suggest you just paint the thing whatever color you want to and tell Paul that it was the color he chose. He will never know the difference and if you guys end up not liking it, you can blame him.
You are hilarious. And wise.
Our dining room is Ben Moore Abstracta. It used to be Pratt & Lambert Jonquil, but that wasn’t yellow enough.
Our interior designer was measured in her enthusiasm, but a few months later she sent me a link to this: http://bit.ly/1qMu8fF
I love this post so very much.
(Similar experience with the lavender we used in the baby’s room. AGONIZING discussions!)
Sherwin Williams Daffodil will give you what you want without blinding you. Yellow is the most difficult paint color to choose well (my dad’s a painter, I worked in a paint store for years, I painted the entire interior of my last house yellow). daaaaffooooooooodilllllllllll
You are such an evocative writer. I love this post.
We painted the kids’ bathroom yellow since that room doesn’t have a window (which drives me crazy, but that’s another story) and I wanted it bright. The yellow did brighten it up and I loved it for about 5 years. Then we had to paint it because my daughter was getting headaches in that room day after day.
Bright yellow takes guts, and I think it’s perfect for a bathroom, especially when there isn’t a lot of wall space.
You guys are cute. This is So SO Good.
Also, we had a similar conversation over painting our kitchen yellow some years ago. We went with a color in the Martha Stewart paint swatches (but didn’t use her paint) called Sewing Basket. It’s bright and cheery without being gross. We like it.
I think yellow is the HARDEST color to choose, especially if you are going for a “bright & bold” sort of look.
Fair warning — you (and Elizabeth someday) probably won’t be able to put on makeup in a yellow room, so I hope you have a separate space for that. :-)
I’m not sure I’m brave enough for yellow (except perhaps as an accent wall in a nursery) but I love going to people’s houses and seeing it.
DH painted an orange accent wall in his office. Like ORANGE. Orioles orange. And actually, he picked it out and then I had to paint it. My eyes felt damaged for several hours afterward, lol. It was fun though and it actually doesn’t look bad now that all of his stuff is in it.
We painted a room in our house yellow and we ended up deciding that it wasn’t, in fact, sunshine yellow but crack-house yellow. It was shudderingly bad. We quickly repainted to a much more muted yellow (that didn’t even look that yellow on the paint chip) so I agree that yellow tends to go on more yellow than you imagine from the happy little paint chip. Also, I think doing yellow in a room with lower(ish) ceilings (like regular ceilings you tend to find in older homes) is often tricky to pull off. It’s such a Big New House with LOTS of space color to pull off. Then again, I am admittedly and unashamedly completely lacking in any sense of style or decor. Would love to see “befores” and “afters”.
Paint colors are as hard to agree upon as children’s names, if not harder. I was SHOCKED that when we decided to paint our house, my husband and I each separately chose the same color from the sample book. Then we argued over what color to paint the shutters for a week.
(Disclosure: We painted the baby’s room half yellow and half green – half yellow because I insisted and half green because my husband doesn’t really like yellow. I still love the yellow we picked.)
“Choosing a paint color is like loading a dishwasher.” Lol! We painted a wall in our kitchen a similar yellow to the one in the picture you posted. It was a Behr paint called Pineapple Soda. When I looked at it on their website it looked nothing like the color we have though. This is more like it. http://www.bluetandclover.com/2011_11_01_archive.html
Love the back and forth between you and Paul. My husband and I have an ongoing green/ blue debate.
You are a much nicer wife than I. Because every time I’ve painted (and yes, I’m usually the one doing it) I pick the color and he just has to live with it. Especially since he didn’t do any of the work!
When we moved into our house, I painted our kitchen butter yellow and I loved it. But then I painted it MUCH BRIGHTER yellow and I loved it even more. Currently it’s a deep taupe, and I miss the yellow. Such a happy colour.
I really like yellow, but hoo boy. Those are some vibrant choices.
But I have an orange bathroom because *you* have an orange bathroom. So, my opinion counts for naught.
I painted my (tiny) laundry room Very Yellow. Kind of chicken, since I’m basically the only one who sees it, but I do find it cheery.
If you’re going with BRIGHT yellow, may I suggest using matte/eggshell finish paint? It won’t reflect like high-gloss would so you won’t have the WHOA HELLO BLINDINGLY BRIGHT YELLOW WALLS effect going on.
My smallish bathroom is Behr’s Bicycle Yellow, has been for ten years, and I haven’t regretted it a second. It’s especially nice when during the winter when the sun isn’t up as early as I am, and it helps open my eyes on days when they don’t want to be.
We have had many yellow rooms over the years. My favorite yellow has been one called cowslip by a company (who? Not sure!) who numbers the shades. Cowslip 1 is pale and cowslip 6 is dark. 3 was perfect for us. For our main room which is more mustard we have cloudy amber. Oddly my SIL independently picked the same color years later. It’s not as bright as you want but it’s good. Good luck!
There is much to love here but I think my very favorite part is the gumball. Awesome.
I fear paint color choosing so much that I haven’t painted a room in the house in a very very long time. I had a bad run of choices and now just can’t make a decision. I envy people who just grab a gallon of paint and go for it saying they’ll just repaint if they hate it.
We painted our living room in our last-house-but-one a buttery, shortbready yellow. I suspect you would call it chickening out, but I adored it. I think greens are harder to choose even than yellows: too mossy! too Army Jeep! too grassy! too minty! too emerald! too aqua!… I have a wonderful green in my bedroom right now and the people who lived here before us chose it. I hope it never gets dirty or peels, ever.
Benjamin Moore HC 5
HahahahahahaSOB. I’m having flashbacks to four years ago when we bought our house and had to paint the whole interior. Somehow, I was under the mistaken impression that I’d married my father, who didn’t give a rat’s patoot for interior-decorating adjacent pursuits. In actuality, I had married myself with different opinions, and we spent what felt like days haggling over different greens and tans and whatever for every single room. Sometimes two colors per room. In the end we did pretty well, but I live in fear of the day we decide to redecorate.
We have a very light yellow in our girls’ room that I love, but one thing we did with all the bedrooms was color washing – using a dark color with a single layer of lighter beige or white applied over it, either via sponge or, in one case, vertical brush strokes. When done correctly, it can really help soften a strong color without actually losing that color (as with the nursery yellow). (When done incorrectly, you get our master bedroom, which somehow looks like pea soup, but my husband did the entire house himself, with a very little help from a few friends, in, like, a week, so I don’t worry about it too much).
The guy at the paint store told me the lighting in houses is red, so consider that when choosing a paint color. This helped me a lot, to picture the color with some red tones. Also, what color is your wood (if you have wood in there)? It will change your paint color.
We sold a house & then bought a house last year & if there’s anything I’ve learned in that process it’s that the paint chips only have a vague relationship to what a color looks like on your given walls. Sample pots for the win! We painted our small kitchen in the old house a very vibrant apple green – and it took I think 6 test colors (on the wall – the actual wall – not just near the wall) to come up with it. Ditto for our bathroom, which I initially thought I wanted to be grey & after, no kidding, 12 different greys, finally settled on a sagey-greenish-grey that read much more green than I’d ever thought I’d choose.
Also, this might be helpful – I love SW paints:
http://www.sherwin-williams.com/homeowners/color/find-and-explore-colors/paint-colors-by-family/