They call me mellow yellow

Yellow is a weird color when it comes to paint.   Most colors you can trust the small paint chip to give you a pretty good idea of how it will look on the wall. Or this case, door.  But yellow is deceiving, cunning, and will brightly lead you down the path to frustration.  I should have learned my lesson with yellow. I wrote about my experience HERE.

Yet I I still love yellow and was so sure I knew what I was doing now.  And I wanted a yellow door. So I was going have a yellow door.  And all I had to invest was $5 for a paint sample.

Here's the before...

Good, classic red. 

I have a paint chip thingy of all the colors and so carefully scanned them all to find just the right yellow.  I had narrowed it down to two and decided on "Quilted Joy" because it had a little more gold in it. (When picking any paint, you always choose a color little darker and a little greyer than what you really want because all paint looks brighter on a bigger surface.)  So, I continued to think that ruled applied with yellow.

Not so.   Warning: Colors are brighter in real life than they appear in film.  My "Quilted Gold" turned into "Florescent Sunshine" once on the door.  What the what?!

How does that happen? It looks completely different than what I had imagined.

So I went back to Sherwin Williams to ask an expert. (I've said this before but I love the smaller stores because they have more time to walk me through my ignorance and actually teach me something.  I'm sure it just depends on the person who helps you, but I personally found them more helpful because I need a lot of help.)

Anyway, I asked what I did wrong.  Why is it so dang different?  First when I told him our house is a light olive grey, he suggested painting it classic red because that is it's complementary color.  But I didn't want red.  I wanted yellow. :)  So the guy schooled me in yellow.  What I had in mind had a LOT more gold and brown in it.  Yellow changes immensely depending on what color it is next to. More so than other colors. 

So I picked another color, "Anjou Pear." It had a lot more gold but was still bright like I thought I wanted.

Sign in window reads "Don't look at the door.  I know it's way to bright."  And yes, I know I am dork.

See, how much yellow changes depending on the light?!  It's the same color as above.   I left it for a few days but realized I wanted a more mellow yellow.

So back to the store I went.  Below is my Yellow Journey.  I had started with #1 thinking it was a beautiful yellow.   Then went to #2 because it had a little more gold.  My third trip to the store had me going for #3 and then maybe #4.  But I decided to be even more conservative and went with "Restrained Gold."  See how incredibly BROWN it looks compared to my first choice?!   I didn't want brown.

See how brown it looks?

But here's the final result.  And I love it.  All computers are different so who knows exactly what you see on your screen, but in real life it is definitely yellow and it fits me perfectly.  Not too bright, not too grey, not too brown.

I also painted the door frame white which makes it stand out quite a bit.  I want to add a door knocker, a kick plate, some plants and a colorful, new mat.  I'll add those as I shop sales and figure out exactly what I want.

You can see the yellow and olive together.

Before....

After...

Why do my posts always end up a novel?  I've realized I just wrote quite the diatribe on how I just painted my door.  I know.  It's much more interesting to me than to most people.  And I guess it always takes a while to get through all of my mishaps.  Oh well.  That's my life, folks.