New House: Recovering From Disappointment

I suppose there are plenty of people out there who build a house, make choices that they believe to be outstanding and then are sorely disappointed when they see the result.  That's what happened to me.

I chose our stone for both the outside garage area and the inside fireplace (matching) thinking I was getting something that was varying colors of grays and blacks.  Instead, I got this:

Looks more on the side of brown, wouldn't you say?  Brown and tan?  Yes.  Not what I was thinking.  Not what I wanted.  I went back and looked at the pic I had of the swatch and sure enough, it kind of looked like what I ordered.  I have no idea what I was thinking, really.  I had told the design lady I was working with that I was not a huge fan of warm colors and that I wanted a completely gray and black look to my house.  She led me to this stone.  So, it would seem to me she wasn't so totally trained to the point where she would know to say, "You know, when you get this stone up, it's decidedly brown."  I would have immediately said, "Oh, well then it's not for me!"  And on we would have moved. 

But no such luck.

I went inside and saw my fireplace:

I mean, don't get me wrong, the stonework is gorgeous.  It's the COLORING that's the issue. The funny thing about the fireplace is the bottom half isn't as tan-ish as the top!  Too bad the whole thing wasn't like that.  I brought my swatches of paint that I had fallen in love with - a muted tan/green, green, a stormy blue and a lighter version of the stormy blue - and saw that NONE of them looked right with the stone.  My mom was with me and I said as much to her.  She replied with, "No, not really.  I didn't want to say anything."

Anyway, I went around being mopey for a few days, trying to knock myself out of it, telling myself it's not like I had some fatal disease for God's sake!

And my mom said, "You know, you just need to find another cool color that works.  There are SO many paint colors out there.  Gray might look nice."

And I thought about that and thought how I was being forced to give up my dream color scheme due to a crappy swatch and an undereducated design lady.  I thought about painting the stone - at least the stone inside because I'd be staring at it day in and day out.  I wondered if stains for stones existed - I googled it.  I only found out how to do faux painting in a stone style.  LAME.

And then I was like OK FINE.  MAYBE IT'S TIME TO SWITCH IT UP.  I've had almost every living room I've ever lived in some sort of green.  Maybe this was an opportunity to do something new and fantastic - something fitting a new start in a new house.

And then I saw THIS cover of House Beautiful and this Crate & Barrel ad inside and thought THIS.  THIS IS MY NEW INSPIRATION. 

Gray walls with splashes of orange in throws and pillows and artwork and vases.  And I'd add some green with plants and artwork. I especially liked the textures and patterns from the cover.  I've never worked to much with textures and patterns, so that should be fun.  It'd be easy to take the color scheme into the kitchen as well.

Yes, I had something to be excited about again. 

And it was NEW and FRESH (at least to me).