Going Bold: Painting My Dinning Room Accent Wall

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I freely admit that for the past 20 years I have been living my life as neutral. No, I’m not talking about life itself, but about my walls — my color life.

I’ve owned three houses and I’ve never done anything bold — until now.

I realized it was time for a change. After reading the book Change Your Home, Change Your Life™ with Color by Moll Anderson

, I realized by never taking any color risks I was playing it safe. I was afraid of color and afraid of choosing the “wrong” color.

Throughout this journal-style book, Moll highlights a fresh, modern approach to creating colorful spaces. In fact, she highlights thirteen colors in individual chapters in order to determine what colors you have an emotional reaction to and how this reaction impacts our moods, behaviors, and emotions. As I began working through the book I initially assumed that I would be a pastel, maybe a pale pink at most. Then a funny thing happened, I felt myself being drawn to red. Bright, bold red.

In her book, Moll refers to the red palette as being #empoweringred which is part of the reason I was drawn to it. After all, this new house is a new start for me and one of the first chapters of my new life, so why not make it feel bold and empowering?

Painting the Accent Wall

When I told my mom I was going to paint an accent wall in my dining room red, she looked at me like I was crazy. I knew what I wanted though- something sophisticated yet bold- something to make a statement.

I headed to the hardware store and picked up some samples of reds that I felt jumped out at me. I had a set of bold, red drapes which I knew would go perfect in the dining room so I wanted to match the paint to them as well.

This was the first I’d be painting this room (it had horrible pineapple wallpaper, which I removed, when I bought it.) So I wanted it to look tied together and complete when I was done.

With my parents help, we took a Saturday, taped the room with painters tape, and painted the accent wall as well as the rest of the room. We painted three walls a cream color, but one wall we went with the bright red.

Since it was such a bold color we had to do two coats, but when it was done it looked great and it tied together with my carpet (which has dark reds in it), my Tiffany-style lights, and the curtains perfectly. I was so pleased!

I really enjoy decorating with antiques and in a bit of an industrial style, so I decorated the room with some fruit crate ends that I picked up at a flea market, as well as two window picture frames which I backed with some damask scrapbook paper to create the look of faux windows.

The final look was a room with a bright, bold wall and decor that fits my personality exactly. In fact, I can’t wait to start on decorating my other rooms — and this time I won’t be afraid of color!