Silver Trinket is the name of the paint colour. The name is perhaps not as alluring as Balboa Mist, Timber Wolf, or Apparition, but aesthetically, Benjamin Moore's Silver Trinket was the most appealing shade of gray for our old teal laundry room that had seen far better days.

We've owned our house for two and a half years now. In that time, we've slowly but methodically undone the previous owner's 'special' paint choices. The bright orange main bedroom, now the colour of a sandy beach. The acid green basement and hallway, now powder blue and warm white. The stark white washroom, now adorned with olive accents. The blotchy navy garage door, now an even grass green. The floor-to-ceiling (including the ceiling) teal laundry room was the most recent project.

The laundry room hadn't exactly been on the reno plan for this year, but when the progressively deteriorating washer reached the point of no return immediately followed by the inevitable demise of the three-decades-old dryer, it seemed that the universe was offering a sign. I wouldn't feel right installing a brand new washer and dryer into the teal laundry room with its bashed up walls and lumpy ceiling. Redoing the stick-on-linoleum unfortunately wasn't in the budget, but a can of paint certainly was, and I know quite well by now the difference a good colour on the walls can make. The previous owner had in multiple places spackled holes and painted right over the spackle, skipping the part wherein one typically sands the spackle level with the drywall. The resultant rough patches of teal spanned the walls like a dalmatian's spots. There were inexplicable nails jutting from the door frames. There were splashes of paint across the water pipes. There was crusty green painter's tape disintegrating atop a windowsill, the former owner's abandoned attempt at a decent reno before she clearly exclaimed, "Screw it! Screw it all!" and handed the paint roller to her six-year-old.





We made the best of our teal laundry room for two years and it lasted so long in its current state because more guest-friendly rooms took precedence, but with a brand new washer and dryer on the way, it was time for an aesthetic reno.

The first step was spackling the existing gouges in the walls and sanding down the previous owner's creative drywall repair. This step was hugely time consuming, meticulous work, but so worth it for the clean lines.


Power sanders are fun. Wiping teal drywall dust up off of every surface in the general vicinity? Slightly less fun.


The second step was getting some primer up there.


Also more primer.


The thing with primer is that there are different qualities of the stuff. We had half a can of some good-quality Behr drywall primer from an old project that covered the teal evenly in one coat. When that ran out, we switched to some run-of-the-mill primer picked up from the nearby Home Hardware. What a difference! What Behr could do in one coat, the run-of-the-mill did in three. Lesson learned: When it comes to paint, it pays to pay. Another lesson learned: Don't buy painter's tape from the dollar store. Another lesson learned: Buy that ceiling paint that goes on pink and fades to white as it dries. That stuff is pure genius. At some point in here I went out and bought a three-tier stepladder from Canadian Tire because painting the ceiling on a one-step stool on tip-toes with a roller attached to a broom handle for length was getting a tad ridiculous and bicep-busting.


Eventually, many coats of primer later, the formerly teal laundry room was a cheerful bright white. I seriously reconsidered the gray at this point and wondered if it would be so bad just to leave the room Winter Snowflake or whatever.


I have a bit of a fear of colour, but I've been trying to push myself out of my comfort zone in this department. (Yes, I consider gray a risque colour!) If Pinterest is any indication, gray is the in-thing in home decor these days, so with a deep breath for courage, I dipped the roller into a puddle of Silver Trinket and made a big gray zig-zag across a pristine white wall.


EEK! It probably didn't help that it was like 9 at night and as you can see, one of the three lightbulbs in the room was out, but the paint looked so dark that I began to regret the decision to venture away from safe white walls. What was I thinking?! I momentarily debated an accent wall -- one simple square of gray behind the washer and dryer. I could stop now. I could stop this colour madness in its tracks! Thankfully, determination got the better of me. "It's just paint," I reassured myself, and kept on a-rollin'. Eventually, three coats of paint later, the formerly teal-then-white laundry room was Silver Trinket with white baseboards, door trim, and window trim. I also invested about $5 in shiny new white outlet covers. And lo and behold, Silver Trinket was awesome.


Would you look at that? Indeed, what a difference a good colour on the walls can make! The laundry room feels so much cleaner and brighter in gray and the ceiling in a contrasting colour (white) makes the room feel far bigger than it felt when both the walls and ceiling were teal. Project Silver Trinket -- SUCCESS!