Howdy, guys!  How goes it on this lovely Tuesday?  Today, I thought I’d share what’s going on in our our teeny pool-bath.

Last we left off, I’d added shelves and accessorized a bit…

As grateful as I am to have a pool bath, I wasn’t exactly feeling it in the state you see above in all it’s purpleness.  Don’t get me wrong… purple’s a fine color.  It’s just… this particular shade of purple affected my mood.  NO JOKE.  I felt cranky when I stared at it.  It just wasn’t my jam.

Well, now, I’m happy to report that I’ve rid the space of purple and brought it back to a blank slate so that I can get going on the light, bright, and fun pool-bath that I have in mind.  I mentioned in this post that I had to repaint this room several times in order to get it right.   Ya see, in my mission to paint the room in a light and airy tone, I went a little TOO light.  The result was a washed out minty green color.  Observe…

I was looking for more of a teal, and somehow, despite the appearance of the color swatch, it just didn’t turn out that way.  Plus, it appeared much more yellow than expected due to the lighting in the space.   Luckily, since the room is so tiny, it had only taken me a little over an hour to paint it, so I decided to try again.  But, this time I vowed to spend zero dollars.  Since I have so many partial gallons of paint in the garage from various projects over the years (and really, none of these hold enough paint to do anything significant with them), I decided to mix my own color….

I took my minty green base and and added in navy blue, and several different greys and greens until I came up with this greyish teal…

Again, it looks super green because of the lighting as you can see in this shot of the completed room…

… but honestly, it took me a while to figure out that the lighting was the culprit.   I just kept coming back to the space and staring at it.  IT.WAS.JUST.SO.GREEN.  A completely different color than the paint appeared in any other light.  But, I refused to paint it again.  Not a third time.  No.WAY.  Then, I realized that not only did the PAINT appear more yellow than intended, but the bright white DOOR seemed yellow as well.  And that’s when the cables connected and I realized that it was the lighting.  I opened the fixture and realized that the energy-efficient bulbs were “soft white” which tends to cast a more yellow hue.   So, I went online, searched for my bulbs in “cool white” which casts more of a bluish tone, and found this guy…

(from Amazon)

I love this picture.  Isn’t it other-worldly??  As if the bulb comes complete with it’s own magic light-beams and “angel’s singing” theme song???  Heehee!   Sold by this heavenly depiction, I ordered two and installed them a few days later when they arrived in the mail.

And here’s the room with my new cool bulbs (Note: both shots were taken in “Auto Mode” on my camera)…

HUGE difference, right??!!!  Not only is the wall color more blue, the white fixtures, door, and trim now read as the crisp white that they were meant to be.  I have to say that this is exactly the color I was seeking for my fun, colorful pool bath!   A bright, pretty turquoise.   I thought I might even extend pops of this color into the laundry room by painting the vanity or possibly my don’t-own-it-yet-mirror.   That simple, easy, and inexpensive light bulb change saved me from a third paint job.  I’m SO completely digging the color now.   I’ve also decided to not reinstall the white shelves that were in the space before.   I’m definitely adding back shelves for storage, but they’ll be a different style.   I’ll let ya’ll know when I get around to that project for sure.   In the meantime, I’ve been working (slowly) on other parts of the house, namely the dining room, so I’ll update you soon.

Anyways, I hope y’all have a terrific day!   Do any of you have any other tips or tricks for maximizing your paint color?  Or have y’all ever been in the situation of “paint color regret”?  How did you solve it?  Did you repaint? Change your decor? Your light bulb?