Ever since getting a little bit of color on our walls with the kitchen remodel, I've had a bit of a hankering to add some color to the rest of the house. I have a friend who calls wall paint the "rouge and lipstick" of a house -- the basic structure is the same, but it just sort of perks everything up a bit and makes it look a little younger and fresher.

That said, the idea of masking and taping and clearing the furniture seemed a little overwhelming. We've been in the middle of house projects for so long -- I didn't really want to tear the house apart for weeks again. For us to do the job ourselves, it would probably be 2 months of weekends. And I didn't really want to try to pick just the right colors -- I spent a fortune on pints of paint trying to pick just a color for the dining room before deciding I just didn't have the color pick down and giving up.

The solution? Hire a house painter and Cheryl Murphy -- the designer who picked the colors for the old house that we painted right before selling it. She came over for 2 hours this week and in that amount of time had selected beautiful colors and marked which color would go on every wall of the house. (She also consulted on a few other questions of design and furniture I had -- just talking in general about what would work and what wouldn't). For a very small amount of money, I got a lot of design sense that I trust. Easily a good investment in helping us pick out just the right "rouge and lipstick."

The colors are beautiful that she picked out. Watching her work is fascinating, too -- she went to design school in New York and knows about all the areas of design, but admits that color work is her best subject. She takes into account basic colors that the client likes, what type of sunlight each wall gets (and at what time of the day), what kind of mood the client wants to portray, the psychology of different colors (did you know that red stimulates the appetite or that bright cheery yellow colors actually make people want to leave a room?), and other architectural features that need to match (like flooring or fireplaces). As a self-declared color lame-o, it's fascinating to watch her work. And it's nice to think that the colors will be right the first time, without a doubt. No wavering, no buying pints of paint, trying it, and deciding it's just not right.

It's hard to tell from the photo I attached, but the basic colors include a soft ivory with some buttery undertones, a slightly darker color in the same family that has some soft golds, a light green in the same color family as the buttery color, a slightly darker green, and a caramel brown to be used on one wall in the living room as an accent.

Now we just need to decide on a house painter. We got one bid from a friend's business that seems pretty reasonable -- I can cover it with my last work invoice. And did you know that when you hire a house painter that they not only do all the masking and taping, but also move the furniture and cover it? Full service -- aah!