I have been on the hunt for lockers to put in our home for years. Seriously! It’s not like they are super hard to find. The problem is that the folks who sell them are often pretty proud of these old rusty boxes that used to hold sweaty gym shorts. Finally, I found these beauties that met my criteria for price and size and I quickly scooped them up.
I knew exactly what I wanted. I knew exactly where I wanted them to go. I knew exactly how I wanted to use them. What I did not know however, was what color to paint them. If you’ve followed me for very long, you know this can be my achilles heel. I will ponder, test, re-test, ask my sweet colorblind husband what he thinks, do another test, wait 3 weeks, and then make my choice. Even after this crazy back and forth, I have been known to finish walls and decide it’s not right, change the color, and do it again. It’s a sickness. I can’t help myself.
My amazing kiddos jumped in right away, when I asked for their help to scrub those old sweat boxes down with some soapy water. I mean seriously, these did come out of an old locker room. Yuck!
I went ahead and placed the lockers where I wanted them to go. The contemplation game was on. What would be the perfect color to help tie my new lockers into the room?
I decided to branch out on this one and I opened up a poll to my lovely Instagram followers. I would paint portions of the locker with all of my approved test colors and then let them chime in on their favorite.
I pulled out my tarps. Covered the locker face plates with some masking tape. Then I applied my five colors.
Below is the finished test color results. Once I saw the lockers in place, I had a feeling I knew which color I wanted to use.
Please ignore all my laundry and look through the doorway to the right. You can see the beginnings of a project I will share with you soon. The colors were all coming together making me want to lean in a lighter direction with the lockers. But, like I said, I turned to Instagram to see what my followers had to say. My followers know I love color, lots and lots of color. They all rallied for me to keep the test colors as-is and go with the multi-colored box of crayon approach to my lockers. I just couldn’t do it. My OCD overruled my Instagram friends. (Sorry!)
I landed on the light pink and after letting it settle in for a few weeks, it’s official, I love it! This room already has a lot of busyness with my rug and new wall art happening to the right. The solid color ties it in well while it still has a nice soft pop.
Reagan fell in love when I showed her how she could use magnets to now hang her artwork to the lockers. Which by the way is the primary use for the lockers – art supplies. This little corner is my kids crafting corner. The have all their own supplies and are free to dive into projects whenever they want. Now the locker gives us a little more storage and a fun place to put their work on display.
I’m not a very patient person but some things end up being worth the wait. I love love love my new lockers even though they took years to find. I also love the color after weeks of deliberation and lots of back and forth.
What about you? What is your process for choosing colors? Do you know right away or do you take lots of time to figure it out?
Oh my goodness. Reminds me of the school lockers I had for my son’s room. We used those instead of a dresser. I spray painted each door individually. Wrapping the other doors with aluminum foil to avoid over spray. When he was older, we repainted them in camp colors to go along with his military room. Sold the for a pretty penny when he moved out. Lockers like those are awesome!!!