Painting the kitchen the wrong green

We taped six swatches to the kitchen wall and lived with them for a week, which felt responsible. We chose number seven anyway, on a Saturday, on a feeling.

Two coats in

It looked right in the tin. It looked right on the brush. It looked, on the wall, in actual daylight, like the inside of a hospital. We did the whole kitchen before either of us was willing to say it out loud.

The second weekend we painted over it with the one we should have picked first — a soft, warm green that the light actually likes. We keep a little square of swatch number seven taped inside a cupboard now, as a reminder to trust the wall over the tin.