Paint Problems

So yesterday I told you all how crazy my sleep-deprived hormones have made me. Today I'm going to add troublesome paint choices to the list of crazy-makers in my life.

To begin with, Craig and I have disagreed over various safety aspects in our nursery. When he read that synthetic dyes found in rugs have been "shown" to cause epileptic fits in young children, he demanded that we buy an all-natural, organic wool rug for the nursery (he quickly changed his mind when he saw the price tag associated with said demand). When I read that used crib mattresses are bad because they lose their firmness and trap bacteria, I told him I wanted to junk the used mattress we'd been given (we're still debating this; new mattresses don't come with such hefty price tags--and, to argue my point, there's a reason it's illegal to sell even adult-sized used mattresses). Well, up until last night there was a third point of disagreement: paint.

Obviously, when painting a nursery, you want to go as chemical-free as possible. When a friend told us about some VOC-free paint (that'd be "volatile organic compound") they bought for their nursery, Craig was all on board. I was a little more hesitant because a) we'd picked out really beautiful low-VOC paint colors and b) VOC-free paint costs a good deal more. But I agreed that VOC-free paint would be ideal and I was willing to look into it.

Well, the next day our friends painted their entire nursery with the VOC-free paint they'd bought and hated it. The color was not what they had thought it'd be. Craig and I figured, "Eh, it happens to everyone," and decided to buy some sample tins of paint.

So that's what we did last night. We picked up samples of the low-VOC paint colors (one pink and one chocolate) that we liked and asked the sales girl to show us the VOC-free paint they had available. To begin with, the availability of colors is very limited. She told us that the company markets paint to expecting parents and nursing homes and, as a result, only have very muted colors available. There were only two shades of pink and one of them was more white than pink, and there were no rich chocolate browns at all.Craig thought the "pink reef" VOC-free paint was close enough in color to the "powdered blush" low-VOC paint sample we already had that we didn't need to purchase samples of both. I reminded him of our friends' experience and we went ahead and bought a sample.

Good thing, too! Here's how the paint samples look on our wall:

So the VOC-free "pink reef" would be the lilac-looking paint beneath. We're definitely going with the low-VOC "powdered blush" and the low-VOC "chocolate sprinkle on the wall next to it.

Lesson of the day? Always, always, always spend the $5 and get a paint sample!