Best Paint Colors

November 16, 2011

After: Bedroom Accent Wall

For longer than I’d like to admit, I’ve been planning a turquoise accent wall — first for the living room, and then later I decided on one for the bedroom instead.

After much back-and-forth about the colour choice, we decided — yes, he had a say — on Behr’s Intense Teal (S-G-490). It’s the perfect amount of green, but still truly teal and beachy. We chose a flat finish so it wouldn’t reflect too much light — it’s a bright bedroom facing east — and I thought such a saturated colour would look best matte.

We were so excited to get started, that I forgot to take proper before photos. Well, the bedroom had a rich red accent wall, so I’ll leave it to your imaginations.

This before photo doesn’t show the actual red wall (to the right), but it was the same colour as the drapes, so you can understand why I’ve been longing for an update.

Why didn’t we take before photos?!?! You can see a bit of the red gleaming through after this first coat, though. (It actually only took two coats, without primer!) The other three walls were painted this colour above the closet — he called it coffee, I called it brown. Either way, it was just too dark.

Et voila, the finished accent wall. As you can see, we painted the other three walls a warm white to match the furniture. It’s one of Lynda Reeves’ picks, actually — CIL’s Antique White. We wanted a soft white that wouldn’t compete with the teal wall, and a warm tone that would be cosy enough for a bedroom. It’s perfect. And notice the red drapery was swapped for simple charcoal roller blinds from Ikea. My boyfriend had the brilliant idea to use the leftover fabric from sizing the blinds to cover one-by-fours for the valances (there’s another wider window to the left). He simply used a staple gun to secure the fabric around the edges of the wood, then attached it to the window frame with a few nails. He’s a handy one.

We’re really happy with how it turned out. It’s bold, yes, and may be too bright for some, but I love pops of colour like this. The first photo was taken in the evening, and this one in the morning, so you can see how the teal changes throughout the day. Plus, our warm grey organic matelassé duvet and shams from West Elm keep the room from looking too summery. Oh, and my trio of teal vases are from the dollar store in Japan — steal!

Read my previous post for the inspiration behind this accent wall. Plus, see more bold colour choices in our editors’ fall paint picks gallery.

Photo credits:
1. Behr
2-5. Gwen McAuley