Choosing the Perfect Paint Color
1. I love color
2. We live in a rental home.
Living in a rental home means all the walls are a flat off-white. I get around that by adding lots of color to our decor like the master bedroom.
It is not that I am not allowed to paint the walls – I am – as long as we paint it back or pay for it to be painted when we leave. Given that it is (hopefully) a temporary situation, I choose not to put the time and effort into painting walls, even though I have been itching to! 
Picking paint color for the dining room –
I have been slowly adding pieces to our dining room. It has its touches of color like my red sideboard and a few red chairs. I recently added this beautiful DIY buffet too! There is a dining table on my “to build” list too. However, in general, it was lacking the “wow factor”. It seemed too stark! I started dreaming about what it would be like if that wall was painted a fun color – something that would highlight that beautiful buffet! 
It was almost meant to be when Dunn-Edwards reached out to me to try out their Free professional color advisor service! I couldn’t say yes fast enough!
You might not realize given my bold color choices on furniture but I am always skeptical about my color choices. Choosing a color for a piece of furniture is a lot less intimidating than a picking a color for a wall! There is no way to hide it out of sight of visitors if you end up picking a horrible color!
That’s where Dunn-Edwards has you completely covered! I was so amazed at their FREE profession color advisor service! I just made an appointment and showed up with all my inspiration, room pictures and an extremely indecisive mix of ideas! I wanted greens and reds and blue… he broke everything down so nicely and helped me clarify to myself, what I really wanted!
Let’s talk inspiration for the color choice –
As inspiration for the color choice, I used my favorite pillow covers from India. My living room has a lot of fabric, art and statues from India – think lots of color and brass – I wanted to transition that effect into the adjoining dining room. 
I was so sure I wanted that green-blue to match the pillows but the color advisor also suggested looking at the dark blue with a purple undertone… the least occurring color – to make it the accent wall and bring everything together. I was very conflicted. If you have a few days, they can even render the space so you can see what it looks like with the colors on your shortlist! Good thing they do, because I hated my top choice of color in that setting!
Choice of color for the accent wall –
My final choice was – Tried and True Blue in their Everest paint line which is zero VOC and self-priming. Yes, I went with the least occurring color like the professional color advisor suggested! I picked it in the flat finish so we don’t get glare from the large windows next to the wall. 
Dunn-Edwards has everything you need to paint in store. The color advisor even told me the exact process flow to follow to paint the wall!
RELATED: How to paint a room quickly – tips and tricks you need to know.
Time to paint!
Check out the video! It took me 3 hours to paint the whole thing including 2 hours of drying time. Just look at that amazing impact in the after pictures!!!
I was in love with my buffet and used just stand and stare at it 😉 Now I have a whole wall to stare! It looks amazing! All the decor looks so much more fun and brighter! The wall definitely ties everything together! Look at that rich color –
I would highly recommend you try out their Free professional color advisor service. It is such a great service, I can’t believe it is free!
I leave you once again with the before and after pictures to admire the power of paint and 3 hours! 
Anika's goal is to inspire and empower beginners with woodworking, DIY, home improvement, and home decor ideas.
She wants everyone to unlock their creative potential and experience the feeling that comes with making something. Nothing feels better better than seeing something and saying "I can make that!"
The wall looks great and really makes your beautiful Emerson Buffet pop! 🙂
~Lorelai
Life With Lorelai
Thanks!!
Great job Anika! It’s fun to see everyone’s BOLD interpretation. And fun to see you and I had a pretty similar bold blue inspiration. Very fun!
To be honest I don’t feel well in rooms which are painted in dark colours. However your room does look nice at least on the pictures 🙂
Hi Margaret, I would probably never paint an entire room dark either and honestly this is the first time I painted a dark wall. I like that it added some definition to the room. It is a really long room and it makes the room feel smaller and cozier.
This looks TERRIFIC!! Love that look! This was your rental, though. Did you have to repaint it or did the landlord like it enough to leave it alone? What about your new home? Did you do the same color in there for your dining room??