painting a teen age boys room

[Katy]

5 minutes ago, PeterPan said:

Well actual grey isn't *out* per se, because Pottery Barn Teen is doing tons of it, lol. But you know, if she shows him the PB teen colors and the RP, he can tell for himself. 

I think the RP would be especially nice in a basement or low light room, where you're trying to warm it up. We see a lot of grey and red here in Ohio, for obvious reasons (football colors). So RP would be bizarre here as a substitute for grey, lol. You'll see grey basements in home shows because people are doing the colors. Photographers do it. Bloggers do grey walls.

In fact, if he's thinking about vlogging, don't do RP. Those people actually want GREY. 

But no, RP is lovely. It's ok to suggest to someone the thing they didn't know they wanted, lol.

Why is this op's problem btw??? If the kid wants paint, it's HIS problem and his learning curve to figure this out, mercy. You get better at color by studying it. 

 

Yes but all that pottery barn teen stuff isn't a blue gray, it's a slightly green gray or it's charcoal.  The cold true gray that is a straight up mix of black and white, trendy 6-7 years ago, is no longer there (if it ever was).

I can tell you for sure that buyers love homes done mostly in RP.  The next trend is white on white, and as a parent I'm not a fan.

[PeterPan]

2 minutes ago, Katy said:

Yes but all that pottery barn teen stuff isn't a blue gray, it's a slightly green gray or it's charcoal. 

Yeah, I couldn't go that way. I'm way OCD about color, and sometimes I don't even know why, lol. My dh picked the colors for our basement (where we started when we built our house) and they were these mushroom and bleh brown, oh my. Looked like a doctor's office. Totally neutral. Couldn't take it. We repainted the upper peach, and it took me quite a bit of stress to land on a pleasant blue. Happily, after a few years peach came "in" hahaha. I'm not sure I have a single neutral in my entire house. For real. Yellow everywhere with pops of green, red, blue, violet, pink, you name it. Ds's room is stone with a blue ceiling. I'm like that Troll movie, very colorful. 

So I think color makes people *feel* a certain way and they should *feel* the way they want to. 

But yes, I totally agree that it's wise to start with a coordinated palate, on trend neutrals, etc. Best way to end up happy. I've got a friend painting right now, and she didn't start that way and has had some missteps. If you USE the sources that are provided by the paint manufactrers (color coordinating cards, in season colors, etc.) it's so easy to get the look you wanted and have it come together.

[PeterPan]

Furthermore, I wouldn't even stress over it. It's grey for a male. Two months from now he won't even remember what he asked for, lol. As long as it goes with the curtains, don't worry about it. 

I think I went through *16* sample quarts to get the right violet for my master. I'm not sure, but it was a lot. But violet is a stupid picky color, with trends toward red or blue, and it just took me a while to develop my eye, make sure the color I was choosing looked good in all lights, and make sure it was really what I meant. I got the *perfect pensive* violet and I LOVE it still, 12 years later. That's quite an accomplishment for me, lol.

Some colors are worth that effort, and some aren't. For a male teen, slap up the color you like that goes with the curtains and don't even sweat it. If it's a neutral that works for the next use for the room in 2 years, all the better. Personally, as a guest, I'd probably rather stay in RP than grey. But if it's going to become a sewing/craft room that's totally different.

[Katy]

4 minutes ago, PeterPan said:

Yeah, I couldn't go that way. I'm way OCD about color, and sometimes I don't even know why, lol. My dh picked the colors for our basement (where we started when we built our house) and they were these mushroom and bleh brown, oh my. Looked like a doctor's office. Totally neutral. Couldn't take it. We repainted the upper peach, and it took me quite a bit of stress to land on a pleasant blue. Happily, after a few years peach came "in" hahaha. I'm not sure I have a single neutral in my entire house. For real. Yellow everywhere with pops of green, red, blue, violet, pink, you name it. Ds's room is stone with a blue ceiling. I'm like that Troll movie, very colorful. 

So I think color makes people *feel* a certain way and they should *feel* the way they want to. 

But yes, I totally agree that it's wise to start with a coordinated palate, on trend neutrals, etc. Best way to end up happy. I've got a friend painting right now, and she didn't start that way and has had some missteps. If you USE the sources that are provided by the paint manufactrers (color coordinating cards, in season colors, etc.) it's so easy to get the look you wanted and have it come together.

No I get it, our house in Oklahoma was all painted in this horrible dirty mustard color.   Some gold shade from Sherwin Williams.  It literally made me anxious.  I got in a fight with DH about the need to paint it.  I swatched out neutrals, put Cedar Key in the living room (it's literally the same color as RP but with a red undertone instead of green), and Revere Pewter almost everywhere else except the bedrooms, and it changed the whole feel of the house.  DH still comments that our house went from being messy to always looking like a magazine because I was so much more motivated.  It wasn't motivation, it was comfort.  I felt relaxed and happy and had energy.

When we bought this house we looked at another just like it.  Same floor plan and everything, but this one was closer to the dock and that one had mustard gold paint everywhere.  I bought the one with the 90's beige because that mustard made me anxious.

[PeterPan]

25 minutes ago, Katy said:

I swatched out neutrals, put Cedar Key in the living room (it's literally the same color as RP but with a red undertone instead of green),

Ooo, that Cedar Key is great! That would look FABULOUS in my house. I've actually been trying to open my mind to the power of neutrals haha. I just never studied them enough to know what neutrals I would *like*. That's a really nice color. So you're saying it has red undertones? Interesting.

[PeterPan]

28 minutes ago, Katy said:

DH still comments that our house went from being messy to always looking like a magazine because I was so much more motivated.

Hahaha, that's good! We had a space we were doing, and I was really new to painting. I literally ripped pictures out of magazines and handed them to dh and told him to have the painter make it look like that, lol. 

Y'all have seen Mr. Blanding Builds His Dreamhouse with Myrna Loy and Cary Grant, right? She goes in with all these picky colors and shades and the painter/contractor turns around GREEN, YELLOW, BLUE. Hahaha. 

Edited September 26, 2020 by PeterPan

[Corraleno]

By definition a "neutral" gray isn't a cold blue-gray. I don't think I've ever seen a commercial paint color that was truly nothing but white with a little black in it; even the cool grays usually have a little more complexity than that. For example the gray in DS's room has just enough yellow and brown (iron oxide) in it to neutralize the blue-black without shifting it one way or the other.

I like Revere Pewter, I tested it (and Cedar Key, Balboa Mist, and many other BM greiges) in my house, and I've got rooms in Edgewood Gray (which is like a lighter version of RP) and Litchfield Gray. With both of those greiges, they look grayer with green undertones where the sun hits it directly, and more beige with pink/purple undertones in dark corners and at night with incandescent light. That is both the appeal of greiges like RP and their biggest drawback — they are complex colors that can look vastly different in different light, and even on different walls in the same room depending on how the light hits it. On the other hand, a simple neutral gray like Sterling will generally stay the same whether it's on a wall that gets full direct sunlight or in a dark corner illuminated only by a light bulb, so I could use literally any accent color in DS's room and it would look good.

[easypeasy]

OP - I'd check out Sherwin Williams' Mindful Gray. It is usually reported to have little/no undertones and I think it's a fantastic medium gray.

https://www.sherwin-williams.com/homeowners/color/find-and-explore-colors/paint-colors-by-family/SW7016-mindful-gray

Or Dorian Gray, which is one spot darker on the color card & also supposed to be a true gray:

https://www.sherwin-williams.com/homeowners/color/find-and-explore-colors/paint-colors-by-family/SW7017-dorian-gray

In our own house, we have lots of Agreeable Gray and Anew Gray - but both are definitely in the greige family, which is what I was looking for. 🙂 (my 17 yo kid has Dorian Gray in his own room - when we recently repainted, he was insistent on as "neutral" as possible, and Dorian won the day, lol! He has 3 gray walls and one white.)

Edited September 26, 2020 by easypeasy

[Storygirl]

It might help you to get the Sherwin Williams Color Snap app (or something similar from another brand). You can take a photo of your room and see how it would look with different colors of paint. You would still want to get samples yourself, but looking at it digitally might help you narrow down what you want. SW also used to have a free service, where they would come to your home to give a color consultation. I never used it, but the previous owners of my house did (the left the documents in our home binder). You can call a SW store and ask them if they still do this.

[Corraleno]

OP, if you're looking for fabrics to tie into the "mechanical" theme, you might check out Spoonflower. I have bought science-themed fabrics from them in the past; they have a zillion designs, the fabric is printed to order, and the quality of the material is very good. I wouldn't go super theme-y with all the soft furnishings, but a few pillow cases or throw pillows or something in a "mechanical" fabric could work well with more basic comforter or duvet for instance. I don't know whether his concept of "mechanical" leans more towards autoparts or steampunk gears or Da Vinci sketches of flying machines, but here is a sample of some of the fabric designs available (as bedding or as fabric by the yard) from Spoonflower:

[lynn]

I used a blue/grey (hide and seek was the color) in my sons room.  Found a gray comforter with some red and put up red curtains.  I don't have pictures.  When he changed rooms we put it neutral and it's now a storage room.   

[mlktwins]

My boys have 3 solid walls (one boy has taupe and on has pale blue) and 1 deep red accent wall where their beds go.  

[ikslo]

My DS asked for black 1 1/2 yrs ago when we moved in to our current house.  I allowed it, as long as he agreed to the ceiling/trim the same shade of white as the rest of the house and to living with it at least until high school. We added black blackout curtains. I thought it came out great, and he’s going on 14 now and he still loves his room. 

I think parents put too much stock into the color of walls in a room they themselves aren’t in much. Just my opinion of course.  (DH was against the black at first but even he admitted it ended up looking great.)