Week 4: One Room Challenge | Half Way There | Easy Method to Select the Best White Paint

Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 | Week 6 | Week 7 | The Reveal

It’s the half way mark of the One Room Challenge and what did we accomplish this past week? Not much. But behind the scenes there was a ton of logistics and coordination going on. If you’re going into a remodel, just realize that project managing is just as much OR MORE than the design work. I admit though, I enjoy putting all the pieces together, even though it can be relentless. It’ll be a rush to get everything done in 4 weeks but I think we’ll make it!

If you want to learn all the tips and tricks on how to effectively manage a home remodel, subscribe and I’ll share my template with you in Week 8 – my reveal week!

You can also read about my stunning before and after remodel where my goal was to transform an outdated 1970’s condo in 6 weeks for under $20K – I give you all the materials used, the detailed project cost breakdown and you can sign up for a free remodeling project tracker too!

Since not much happened this week, I’m detailing my main finishes for you and providing tips on how to prevent analysis paralysis when choosing white paint for your kitchen.

Firstly, here is a snapshot of my colors and materials:

• Cabinets: BM Swiss Coffee & Onyx Paint, Walnut natural stain
• Quartz: Compaq Unique Statutorio Gold
• Backsplash: Marble chevron tile (not pictured) and Mother of Pearl
• Hardware: Honey Champagne Pull, Satin Brass Knob Amazon

My Simple Method for Choosing White Paint

I’ve experienced some extreme analysis paralysis when choosing white paint colors. How can you not when there are hundreds of white paint colors and searching ‘how to select the best white paint‘ retrieves 479M results?!? One day I may write a super detailed post dedicated to white paint but for now I want to share my quick and easy no fail method.

My biggest takeaway is – you can’t mess up – trust me! As long as you follow the 5 steps below:

1. Select a provider – I keep it simple by only having 2 choices: Benjamin Moore or Sherwin Williams – You can’t go wrong with either. They basically have the same colors. Case in point – SW Creamy is almost the same as BM Swiss Coffee. How do I know? I stuck a BM Swiss Coffee peel and stick sample on my SW Creamy wall and it almost disappeared.

For the technical ones out there, you can compare the RGB (red green blue) values and see they are almost the same. (Swiss Coffee – 237, 234, 224 and SW Creamy – 238, 231, 217)

2. Select a cool or warm undertone / temperature – Cooler (leans more crisp, blue, grey, green) or warmer (leans more soft, yellow, red, tan). How do you decide the undertone? The no-fail easiest technique is to match your wall and cabinet undertones. Bonus if your floors are the same color temperature too.

Here you’ll see warm walls, cabinets and floors:

If you’re changing your cabinets to white, the easiest no fail technique is to select the SAME white paint for your walls and cabinets. Using the same white opens up the space and keeps everything looking clean and seamless.

3. Select 3 shades maximum from the color swatch <– This is the hard part but force yourself to only select up to 3.

4. Order peel and stick paint samples – This is worth the investment. I like to buy 2 samples for each color. Each sample is 12″x12″.

5. Put samples up – Stick onto different areas on your walls and/or cabinets for a few days to see how the colors look in various stages of natural and artificial light.

Note: Photos don’t really do the colors justice. You just gotta make the choice based on how you see it in-person so showing someone a photo doesn’t help IMHO. Can you really tell the difference between these 2 colors?

Coming into the 5th week of the One Room Challenge, we should have our quartz countertops and backsplash in – cross my fingers – so STAY TUNED!

Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 | Week 6 | Week 7 | The Reveal

Have questions about selecting the perfect white paint? Ask me anything!