The Great Escape: In the Mom Cave, Color Me Blue

Columnist Laura Cassar is creating a room to escape to in her own home. She's calling it the Mom Cave, and she'll chronicle her progress here in this spot. Read Part 1  and Part 2

I've been a bit stuck on my Mom Cave project. The walls are bare and ready, but I'm having a hard time committing to a color. I turned to my Patch readers and these are some of the suggestions I got:

• Cindy shared: "A deep teal for the walls, it would look stunning with white furniture. Just my 2 cents!"
• Jan suggested a personal favorite: "After reading the article, I looked up the color I used last summer for my stairway walls. It was Behr Ultra Swan Sea 500F-4. I used a dark brown for accent/trim. I love the color. It reminds me of a robin's egg blue."
• Sherry speaks from personal experience: "We just re-did our study last year, and the floor is that cherry color that has a hue of orange to it. Before we knew it was trendy, we selected an awesome Benjamin Moore grey from on Livernois (they are awesome!). The trim is white, the ceiling is a lighter grey, the beams are white."
• And Barb chimed in with her favorite color: "Blue! Almost any blue cheers me up, so I don't know which shade. I'd go with blue and blue."

After countless trips to  I had a pile of swatches, mostly blues, and yet was no closer to closing the deal.

Fortunately, when I need help in the decorating department I can turn to Jean Bean from Jean Bean Interiors. Bean has been helping make beautiful homes since 1994 and has been helping me since 2003, when I moved to Rochester Hills.

Look around you for inspiration

Bean came over and we stood in my stripped down room to talk. We talked about room function and how I want to feel in the room. This will be my office, but more than that, it's going to be my dedicated space in a house full of the male species (even our pet frog is a boy) so I would like to feel relaxed and feminine in it. 

We discussed trends (yes, there is a lot of grey out now) and lighting. We looked through my massive stack of swatches. I told her about my love of Tiffany blue but for some reason I couldn't entirely embrace it. Bean shared that it was too intense for the relaxed feel I was looking for. She was also worried it wouldn't stand the test of time and I would be sick of it within a year.

I thought we had "hit the wall" but Bean has one tried and true trick for even the most indecisive of clients. "Choose an inspiration piece first, then tie the color scheme to that," she said.

My inspiration

This winter I did a about and took a shine to a sweet painting of a girl on a swing. My husband, who is very good at picking up my subtle hints, surprised me with it. When Bean asked for my inspiration piece, the picture is what I showed her. I can't wait to have it hanging in my Mom Cave.

With my inspiration piece and favorite-but-not-quite-right color choice in mind, Bean delivered a color palette. And I have to say, she nailed it:

• The walls: Benjamin Moore Soft Mint in Satin Finish
• The trim: Linen White in a semi-gloss. The trim is currently wood, including some ceiling beams. 
• The ceiling: Bean gave me three fun options to select from— Yellow Chiffon, Sea Mist Green and Ballet Slippers. All three pick up on the flowers from my inspiration piece and now I have another tough decision to make!

And, if all else fails, Bean insists, "Always go with what you love and not what is in style. Then you'll never grow tired of the space." 

Next steps

I am so excited to start painting! But wait, there's more. 

"One of the most common mistakes is not preparing the walls properly," Bean tells me.

Say what? I can't just start slapping on my pretty color?

She continues, "Fill holes and clean the walls. You may have to sand the walls then wash them again. And of course you should prime them first."

And this is when I give my husband my most winning smile and say, "To be continued ..."