Painting Navy

Inspiration (thanks, Pinterest!)

My neighbor's old window has been leaning up against my garage wall for over a year now, and I think I've finally devised a CONCEPT for it. It will be called a "concept" simply because I have NO idea if this will actually work in the real world. I'm what you might call design-challenged.

I have decided to paint the old window a deep navy blue and hang it above the piano. Ideally, I'd like to use this window as the backdrop of all kinds of seasonal décor since our fireplace mantel is crowded out by our not so small TV. I chose navy simply because it goes with SO MANY other colors. However, I went the cheap route on paint. Why oh why do I do this to myself? The man at Walmart couldn't figure out how to pull up the mix list for the Ben Moore color I had originally chosen, so I grabbed a paint chip from their selection that I thought matched. Did I take it outside? Nope. Sure the colors matched under fluorescent lighting....but I don't have any flourescents in my living room. Result: Royal Blue instead of Navy. The Royal Blue is a bright, saturated, delicious color, but not what I wanted. Taking a cue from my friend Julie, I went in search of other paint cans in the garage to mix the color I desired.

First of all, it's important to note that you should never try to mix paint that's been mixed in the store. There are too many factors that will play into the final paint result, such as texture, sheen, and the fact that there might be a rainbow of added colors if you didn't mix them well enough. However, I only worry about that if I'm attempting to mix paint for walls. Small pieces aren't a big deal to me! So I mixed my Stunning Navy with Black exterior paint. If you can't tell a difference from the left image and the two on the right, you might be color blind.....or my camera did a poor job of capturing the difference. Either way, I'm much happier with the mix! Be warned though: mixed paint takes FOREVER to set up!