Tried It Tuesday {50 Shades of Gray}

Happy summer! Many of you who start school in August have already begun your summer vacation. You made it! I hope you are relaxing and taking time for yourself. :) In NY, we don't start break until June 25th but this month is already flying by!

It's Time for Tried It Tuesday! 

What have you tried at school or home?
If you've never linked up with Tried It Tuesday, just link up any idea school or home related and what worked or didn't work. Simple! 

My Tried It:

50 Shades of Gray
Ok, how could I resist using 50 Shades of Gray in my title for this post? Haha!! When I started looking for just the right shade of gray to repaint my bedroom, who knew there were SO many very different shades of gray? It is the "new beige" I hear. I learned all about "greige" too (a combination of gray and beige). There were countless hours I spent looking at photos online and on pinterest trying to figure out what might work in my bedroom with the natural woodwork. Most grays look great with white woodwork but I didn't want to paint my natural wood in my 1914 home.

Here are some inspirational photos that helped me narrow down my choices to four paint sample colors. I searched for grays that seemed to work with natural wood.

Sherwin Williams Argos

Sherwin Williams Mindful Gray

Benjamin Moore Revere Pewter (I love this color scheme and went with the teal/blue accents in my bedroom).

Sherwin Williams Amazing Gray

I highly recommend buying the little sample paints and actually painting the walls in your room. Here are the four paint samples from bottom down:

Argos

Mindful Gray

Revere Pewter

Amazing Gray

I wish I had a better picture of the paint samples with the lighting and woodwork. Argos looks the most gray here (top) and the others look almost tan in comparison, but it was too cool of a color for my woodwork I thought.

Here is a better picture of my natural woodwork before painting. I fixed a crack in the plaster above the door with joint compound and tape. There are also some holes speckled that you can see.

I finally decided on Mindful Gray (Sherwin Williams) and am SO pleased with how it turned out. My phone actually bit the dust last night (iPhone 5 won't even turn on) and it doubles as my camera. I have to get something done about that today and then will try for some different pictures in different lighting. It's amazing how a wall color looks differently during different times of day.

My room still needs finishing touches but I am loving it. I bought a little 22" TV that I put on my dresser and watch Netflix at night to my heart's content. I just started watching "Orange is the New Black". It's very fascinating and I don't think I ever, ever want to go to jail! LOL This is the first time I've had a TV in the bedroom since college (since my dorm was my everything room) and I forgot how convenient it is!

 Euro shams and duvet cover are from Pottery Barn. It is the Samantha Damask design in smoke gray. The standard shams and quilt are also Pottery Barn. It is the Pick-Stitch quilt. Both items are on sale right now so they be discontinuing them? I chose a teal accent color and the pillow is from TJMaxx.

 I desperately need something else in the corner but I love my little teal chair from Target.
It comes in other colors too!

 I bought this Momeni Suzani hook rug in grays and blues on Amazon.

One more thing (classroom related) that I am trying are these math games by the Angela Watson. I am using the fraction and geometry ones now and they are wonderful. Once I had all the pieces laminated, I just have about nine baskets of games and students can rotate a couple games during some downtime at the end of the year. It is a change from some of our normal math workshop things and they think they are just having fun! Little do they know...

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