I'm Susan. I'm not a designer and I'm not a contractor, and this site will never pretend otherwise. I'm the person who has to live with the wall after the pros leave — through the year-four fading, the scrubbed spot by the door handle, and the moment a buyer's agent walks in and raises an eyebrow.
We painted our first kitchen a deep hunter green in 1998, because that's what everyone was doing in 1998. I loved it for two years, tolerated it for five, and painted over it the month before we listed the house. That taught me the only lesson worth passing on: you don't choose a color for the weekend you paint it. You choose it for year four.
So that's what Color Diaries is. One famous paint color at a time, judged the only way that matters — by how it lives. Which whites still look right after five years. Which finishes survive a family. When the cheaper can is the smarter buy. Every diary is packed with rooms, because a swatch never warned anyone about anything.
Have one of these colors on your own walls? I'd love to see it — the good, and especially the bad. Join the Sunday letter and reply with a photo.
