CHOOSING PAINT COLOR FOR A BEACH HOUSE

ABOUT THE BEACH LOOK

A beach house needs to be comfortable and easy care, impervious to sand and salt water, with soft and calm colors.  The view outside needs to take precedence over the view inside. That means distressed wood, stone, weathered paint finishes, easy care slipcovers, painted fresh white woodwork, and the muted colors of sand, sea, driftwood, sea glass, and shells.  Toss in the cry of gulls, sound of surf and ocean breeze and a porch or patio to take it all in - and you have HEAVEN.

If feels like its been AGES since I've had time to answer reader's questions....

but I'm so excited to be able to focus on some questions again...

First, Michelle has a questions about paint color for cabinets in a beach house:

Hi Claudine, Love your blog. Just found you on pinterest! Can you give me some advice on what color to use on my beach house kitchen cabinets? They are a 90's light brown color with brown/black/cream granite. I want to work with the granite that is already in the house. We have tons of light and the



kitchen is open to the dining area and great room. I really love the Restoration Hardware grays and wanted to use that on the walls. The house has "good bones". It just needs an update and I feel it lends itself to a modern look. Thanks! I look forward to hearing from you! Michelle Davis -   PS you follow my beach house board on pinterest. :)

Elle Decor

 Hi Michelle. You have discovered my weakness - I'm afraid I'm a bit of an 'island child' at and a beach house just gets my heart all a-fluttering. I don't know if I will ever have an actual beach house, but I live on the West Coast, and not too far from the beach, so I take liberties and incorporate a lot of the elements in my own home...

Houzz

Love the Restoration Hardware gray wall idea, and with the brown black cream granite, I think you should go fresh creamy white on the cabinets. Try Benjamin Moore, White Dove or Sherwin Williams, Creamy for beautiful cabinets. The creamy white will keep everything 'beachy' and make the gray look fresh.

Alternatively, you might pull a switch and consider painting your cabinets gray instead.  Restoration Hardware has 2-3 shades of gray, and one of them will work beautifully.  Think of driftwood - gray is definitely a beach color!

Design Manifest

Desire to Inspire



PPebble

Cote de Texas

If that doesn't rock your boat, how about both?  Gray cabinets on the bottom, and white on top. 

HGTV



Griege Design

 No matter what application you choose, it will look great with the granite, so find one you love, and go for it.  Its only paint!



And by the way, Love your board!

Dear Claudine

I hope this finds you well.

I also hope you don't mind me emailing you however, your email address was on the website I was just looking at and so I thought best to email you directly as you obviously know what you are talking about when it comes to color schemes.

I live in the UK, and have a color in my head for what I want to paint the walls and framing woodwork (doors etc) for my entire downstairs. When watching a US television show I saw just the colors I wanted. I looked it up and one website said it was Benjamin Moore's 'Bleecker Beige'. But, I will not be able to get this here. What I am wondering is if you know of any other similar colors that would match this tone of beige (in the UK we can get Crown Paint, Dulex, etc). If you are not familiar with UK paint companies maybe you could explain what hue of beige this is (greyish beige, whitish beige etc).

Houzz
Bleeker Beige (Benjamin Moore Paints)

Any assistance you can provide would truly be appreciated. My rooms are starting to look like patchwork art due to the plethera of samples I am trying.

Kindest regards,

Stephanie Pryal

Hi Stephanie,
How lovely to hear from you and I hope the wait hasn't been too long.  I have not been able to get to my readers' questions for a little while due to the holiday rush that is upon us.  The color you are referring to [Bleeker Beige by Benjamin Moore] is a calm grey beige. Try as I might, I could not find its equal in either Crown Paint or Dulux.  Some were similar but had either too much yellow or too much pink in them and they all lacked the elusive grey undertone.  See what you think, you may find you love one of these colors, and possibly you can have them put a drop or two more of black in one of these colors to grey it down a bit.

 Another possible alternative is to order a small tester pot via mail order from Benjamin Moore (www.benjaminmoore.com).  I haven't checked if they will ship overseas, but you can discover that from their website.  Once you have a tester pot, a good paint store should be able to color match (if they have that service in the UK).  Good Luck!