{"id":375280,"date":"2025-09-02T01:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-02T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stylebyemilyhenderson.com\/?p=375280"},"modified":"2025-09-09T09:38:37","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T16:38:37","slug":"how-to-choose-paint-colors-that-are-happy-but-not-too-bold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stylebyemilyhenderson.com\/how-to-choose-paint-colors-that-are-happy-but-not-too-bold","title":{"rendered":"How To Choose Paint Colors That Are Happy But Not Too Bold – The Full River House Paint Color Palette"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

If you like big macro \u201chow the sausage is made\u201d posts, this one is for you. The art direction of this house was pretty clear from the get-go, four years ago. The intent was to create a warm, contemporary home that was family-friendly. It\u2019s similar to the mountain house, but with more color. When you live in sunny southern California, you can get away with a lot of white walls, the light bouncing around, delighting your eyes, but in many other places (I’m learning), you really need color to make your eyes happy year-round. And when I say \u201ccolor,\u201d for this house we leaned more tonal – nothing BIG or bold. Of course, a pink bedroom might be bold to you, but not to us \ud83d\ude42 We partnered with Sherwin-Williams<\/a> on this house because they have an incredible assortment of paint colors that are very high-quality, many of which I have relied on in the past over and over. I’m pretty obsessed with this color palette and would use it all over and over again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Choosing the right white…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Living Room\/Kitchen\/Dining Area\/Hallways – Alabaster SW 7008<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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from: river house move-in tour<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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I have found my new favorite white!!!! If you have ever been driven crazy by staring at a billion different white tones that look identical to a non-expert, you are NOT alone. This is why designers have their go-to whites that they use over and over and over again. Well, I’ve found mine. We obsessed about this white for the right amount of time – we chose 10 peel-and-stick samples<\/a>, stuck them all over the house, at different times of the day, on different walls, and stared at them like psychopaths. We finally chose Alabaster SW 7008<\/a>. A very balanced white – slightly warm, without being yellow, more on the taupe side (but don’t get me wrong, this lady is white). It has an 84 LRV, which means that it reflects a lot of light. It looked great with the wood floor, which was mostly what mattered because this color would be in all the open spaces that flowed together – the entry, living room, dining room, kitchen (where there is drywall), and hallways. So yes, I had to really really like this white. Point is, if you need a new white, I think this is really universally good, while still having a slightly warm undertone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Mudroom – Rocky River SW 6215<\/a> (Cabinets) | Alabaster SW 7008<\/a> (Walls)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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from: river house mudroom reveal<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Rocky River SW 6215<\/a> was the first paint color we chose, and we all liked it immediately. It was actually our favorite. I didn’t have to hem and haw, and easily moved on. Thrilling! It’s a fantastic, darker green that is still subtle, while having impact. Technically, it’s green with a lot of blue\/gray undertones, with a reflective value of 15 (so it’s not going to reflect light well). It looked so pretty with the white oak flooring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Library Shelves – Malabar SW 9110<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n
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A sneak peek into likely my favorite room, the game room. This room is clad in wood, so we wanted the cabinets and shelves to pop a bit<\/em>, but not be the star. So we chose a neutral tone, which we properly obsessed over. We wanted to pull the lighter tones of the wood out without going to pink, yellow, or brown. It was hard!! Thank goodness it was exactly what we wanted because the labor for painting custom cabinetry is so expensive (regular drywall can be easily DIY’d, but cabinetry is specific). Malabar SW 9110<\/a> is a light taupe, they call it a \u201csandy beige\u201d with slightly yellow undertones and a 54 LRV.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Family Room – Evergreen Fog SW 9130<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n
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This room is meant to be a darker, cozier retreat of a family\/TV room, and yet it has a lot of windows, so it can actually get a lot of natural light. So the trick with this is to choose something that has an undertone that you love, but not so much pigment that with the light it becomes overly bold. In my family room<\/a>, for example, we used Still Water SW 6223<\/a>, which is perfect in our dark, low-light room, but that same color in a brightly lit room would be so bold and scream TEAL. So we had to choose a color that looked cozy in the dark but also lovely in the light – enter Evergreen Fog SW 9130<\/a>. This was the Sherwin-Williams Color of the Year a few years ago, and I can see why. It has so many undertones – green, brown, blue, and is just so flexible. I will say that we tried a sample of it in Brian’s office, and it read as gray there, with just a small window providing natural light during the day. It’s a color that gives a lot of movement with a little bit of natural light. But in here, it’s a really inviting green\/gray neutral that everyone responds so positively to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Frank’s Room – Studio Blue Green SW 0047<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n
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I have wanted to use Studio Blue Green SW 0047<\/a> for a long time – it’s so good. Frank’s room (my nephew) is on the south side of the house and gets pretty low light despite having two windows. So we embraced the coziness and painted it (and the ceiling) this darker blue\/green. It’s so high impact while strangely being soft on the eyes. I can’t wait to decorate this room (up next!).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Guest Bedroom – Cocoa Berry SW 9078<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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from: river house guest bedroom<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I didn’t mean to use the same warm pink twice, but we accidentally chose it again because it’s that good. Cocoa Berry SW 9078<\/a> is in my powder bath<\/a>, and I love it – so soothing and inviting. It’s extremely womb-like in the best of ways and is the dominant reason why this room is where everyone wants to go when they need alone time or take a sick day. Just incredibly cozy and warm. 10\/10 this color.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Laundry Room – Eventide SW 9643<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n
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from: river house laundry room<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Once I saw these cabinets being painted this color, I vowed to use it in my home somewhere. Eventide SW 9643<\/a> is so soothing and calm and has the perfect amount of blue\/green and gray in it. It reads as light blue, but not baby or powder blue. Getting the right blue\/gray blue at times feels impossible, but this one is so pretty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pantry Nook – Rain Cloud SW 9639<\/a> (Cabinet) | Alabaster SW 7008<\/a> (Walls)<\/h2>\n\n\n
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If you are in the market for a good navy, this one is fantastic because it is more complicated than your typical \u201cdark navy\u201d that often looks one-note. Rain Cloud SW 9639<\/a> is deep and rich, then cut with enough gray that it doesn’t look too bright.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The entire house flows so well, despite using blues, greens, and pinks. The warmer white is the throughline (as is all the wood), and we pulled the same colors from the paint and plugged them into all the fabrics, textiles, and art. I’m so excited to show you all the styled-out shots. A huge thanks to Sherwin-Williams for partnering on this project – it was a long time coming, and we technically aren’t done, but the colors are dialed in and we love every single one of them so much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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*Photos by Kaitlin Green<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you like big macro \u201chow the sausage is made\u201d posts, this one is for you. The art direction of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":375353,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4294,4327,4329,3736,4330,4328,4147,4310],"tags":[1121,4148],"class_list":["post-375280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-things-renovation","category-design-category","category-other-category","category-our-renovation-design-process","category-projects-category","category-rooms-category","category-the-river-house","category-whole-house","tag-paint-colors","tag-the-river-house"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stylebyemilyhenderson.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stylebyemilyhenderson.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stylebyemilyhenderson.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stylebyemilyhenderson.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stylebyemilyhenderson.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=375280"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stylebyemilyhenderson.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375280\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stylebyemilyhenderson.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/375353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stylebyemilyhenderson.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=375280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stylebyemilyhenderson.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=375280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stylebyemilyhenderson.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=375280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}