Whew. Kind of.

Crisis averted. Kind of.

We had a very dark wine color we were going to use in the dining room. The dining room and living room are separate, but the doorway in between is about six or seven feet wide, so we were going to tie the two together with the lighter color. The lighter color that turned out to be pink.

Well, we decided to just try that color in place of the blue in the living room. And it worked! Mostly! I mean, we still have half pink walls in our living room, and it will be the same for our dining room. But it's not so bad that we can't live with it until the day it's in the budget. Now we're out just the cost of one can of paint, not four. And the wine color is just beautiful. It's masculine enough to offset the pink and make it livable. Still not crazy about it. It looks like Valentine's Day barfed all over my living room, but it's better than the alternative. And buying more paint just wasn't an option unless it was the absolute last option.

I will, however, keep all paint suggestions in mind. We still have a kitchen to paint (ack!), and I have no idea what to pick for those. Years down the road, we plan to do a full kitchen remodel, so for now, colors we're already stuck with in there:

--Grey and white countertop. The grey has bluish undertones. I don't hate it, but it reminds me of my elementary school kitchen. It's just so boring. And functional. Nobody would design that pattern for a countertop with beauty in mind.

--Light faux wood floors. They're actually kind of nice, if you're not a hardwood snob. Just really crappy for keeping clean. Have you people seen me chop vegetables. I'm like a two-year-old with a taco salad. And no bib.

--Light wood cabinetry, about the same color as the floors.

--Off-white refrigerator and stove ("bisque", insists GE, but we all know it as off-white).

That leaves the cabinet faces and the walls. There are three windows in there (four, if you count the one in the back door), and they face in three different directions. So there's always a lot of light. It's very bright and airy.

I'd like to do something fun and exciting (with color; I like neutrals as accents, but I want color in a room that's already got a bunch of neutrals), but I don't know what. And the living room has made me timid. It has me cowed. I'm about ready to just paint everything off-white. But those cabinets would then be impossible to keep clean, so I just don't know.

Argh.