The Paint Colors in My Home, Ranked: A Colorphobic’s One-Year-Later Update

A year ago, I wrote Colorphobic: Confessing Paint Prejudices and How To Pick Paint Colors When One of You Hates Colorful Paint, and have been living in a house full of those (mostly) colorful paints ever since. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how much I like most of them! Most of them…

Here are the colors we ended up painting our rooms, ranked from most beloved to… let’s just say least-beloved, because it’s too sad to think about all that hard work going to waste…

Office/Guest Room: Pittsburgh Cannon Gray 1D-5
Oh my goodness, I am crazy about this color. It felt the riskiest— super dark blue?!?— but it’s my favorite. Combined with the bright white doors, window frames, shelves, and ceiling fan and the wooden floors, desks, chairs, and couch frame, the overall effect is somewhat New England nautical and I adore it. Note: I have never been to New England and have only been on a boat, like, twice.

Adults’ Bedroom: Dutch Boy Timbermine F14-2
I was less trepidatious about painting this room a dark color because we spend so little day-time in here— and it turns out we could have gone even darker. Good to know, but in the meantime I really like this color, and it works well with the pale wood floor and trim, my charcoal grey chair, the white window sills and bedding, and our slightly sinister art.

Stairway: Valspar Winter Flannel 40D7-1C
I’ve already mentioned that I loved working with this paint, but I love the color even more. It’s so creamy and soothing and Dutch, because apparently I like to assign random geographical qualities to paint colors. (I apologize for the photo quality- our stairway is very dark.)

Kid’s Bedroom: Dutch Boy Olive Fringes D7-2
I thought I’d made it clear that the requested green, black, and white striped walls sadly weren’t possible for me to do (we were renovating one whole house, fixing up another for sale, and moving from one to the other) but the plain green was still a letdown for him. The color is great with all his stuff, though, and really pops behind his awesome aquarium.

Kitchen/Pantry and Laundry Room/Entryway: Dutch Boy Spectacular DW39
I (gently, respectfully) put my foot down when it came to the kitchen: white paint only. This color actually has a good amount of grey in it— though the male members of my family deny this— that keeps it from being too blinding and/or generic. The kitchen and laundry room aren’t connected, but since I wanted a nice bright entrance to the house, it made sense to use the same paint rather than add (and buy) another color.

Living Room and Dining Room: Pittsburg British Fog N277
This color has been a bit of a disappointment. We fell in love with its foggy nature— especially this San Francisco transplant— and were initially excited about the way it changed throughout the day, shifting between grays, blues, and greens. Now it just seems really green, all the time. It’s still a nice color and it works well with the stuff we already owned, but not one I would choose for the majority of our living space.

Bathroom: Pittsburgh Water’s Edge N249
Argh, such a bummer, especially since this is literally the only color I would have chosen: an entirely white and/or grey house, with a beach glass blue bathroom. My partner sweetly gave me free reign on this choice since I was overcoming my colorphobia for most of the other rooms, so it’s especially disappointing that I dislike this color so much. I thought it would be pale and ethereal and watery, but instead it’s so dated and turquoise and Miami. Note: I have never been to Miami.