Sherwin-Williams Greek Villa: THE Perfect Soft White For Your House For 2022 (2023)

So excited to share a look at our progress painting our house with Sherwin-Williams Greek Villa and a couple of other statement wall accent colors!

I’ll also be sharing a few key tips we learned along the way about painting your house yourself…it’s definitely a lot of work but it’s SO satisfying and rewarding!

We decided to paint the interior of our house ourselves because it’s one of the few things that we’re capable of doing instead of hiring a professional (like demoing walls…we’ll leave that to the pros).

By doing the painting ourselves, we’re saving thousands of dollars (we had gotten quotes for $7 – $9k!).

Here are the paint colors we ended up going with, along with some photos of each:

Greek Villa SW 7551

Greek Villa is the perfect soft white. This is our main color for the house. If you’re looking for pics of SW Greek Villa paint on walls, I’ve got quite a few in this blog post.

Tempe Star SW 6229

You guys helped us pick this color in a Stories poll!

It’s a beautiful navy blue, and we painted it as a statement wall on our stairs/landing area and hung a gallery wall on it.

I love how it makes the gallery wall pop!

Cityscape SW 7067

A very pretty light gray that’s been perfect for a couple of accent walls.

We’re honestly so in love with our paint colors.

It was especially satisfying to paint the upstairs with beautiful Sherwin-Williams Greek Villa because the previous owners had left it with this outdated cream color.

When we started painting over it with Greek Villa we realized just how yellow the old color was (you can see this pictured below). Greek Villa just looks so fresh and gorgeous!

Ok, let’s get into all the deets of this painting project with Sherwin-Williams!

Greek Villa Sherwin Williams

Picking Paint Colors:

So first up, picking paint colors.

This was so much harder than I anticipated lol. There are so many choices and it’s hard to know what’s going to look good.

We started by going to the Sherwin-Williams store and picking out a ton of paint color cards. I think we grabbed like 50!

We brought them all home so we could look at them inside our house—the lighting in your house is going to be different than inside the store.

We were then able to narrow things down to three different Sherwin Williams whites, and a few different dark blues and light/dark grays for a couple of accent walls and a statement wall.

We then went to our Sherwin-Williams store and got paint samples for those colors. The samples come in a pint and cost around $8. Then we got to swatching!

For the whites, we sampled Greek Villa, High Reflective White, and White Duck. We ultimately decided that High Reflective White might look a bit stark, and White Duck was a little darker than we were looking for (it was sort of a warm greige).

We landed on Greek Villa as a soft white that wasn’t too warm or too cool.

Of course, when you’re painting white it’s a very reflective wall color, and the way that it looks changes based on your natural light, furniture, any statement/accent wall colors, and even what’s outside your window (lots of green bushes/trees can give it a green hue).

The other thing I didn’t realize or think about when swatching is that the paint will reflect itself—so for example when we swatched Greek Villa downstairs in our living room, it was reflecting the current paint that was a also white but a little more brown/grey, and it was making our Greek Villa swatch look a little darker too.

But after painting the entire room and ceiling with Greek Villa, it looked so much brighter and whiter. Just something to note and be thinking about when you’re swatching colors!

The other thing to note when swatching and picking paint colors is that the sample paint is likely going to be way glossier than the actual paint finish you’ll be using.

Sherwin-Williams also offers complimentary color consultations, which can be done virtually. You can chat with a Sherwin-Williams color expert, get their recommendations for colors based on your project and what you’re looking for, and have color chip samples shipped to you. So helpful, especially since there are so many paint options and it can be a little overwhelming (like I mentioned, we started with 50 whites!).

If you’re unsure how much paint you’ll need, you can always contact your local Sherwin-Williams store and their experts will be able to help you out.

Sheen:

Ok so another thing I had zero knowledge on was paint sheen! This is basically how glossy or flat your paint’s finish is.

Your Sherwin-Williams color consultant will also be able to help you with this, but typically you’ll want to go with a flat sheen for walls/ceilings, and satin for your trim color, kitchen cabinets, etc.

We LOVE how the flat Greek Villa looks on our walls and ceilings, and we did satin for the baseboards, door trim, and doors.

We were a little worried about how it would look painting over the doors, but it turned out great and you can still see the wood grain texture so it looks very natural.

Paint Materials:

Using the right materials is just as important as picking the right paint!

Picking the right roller nap thickness is a big one. The more textured your wall is, the thicker you’ll want the nap.

For our textured walls, Sherwin-Williams recommended a 3/8″ nap.

Not only do the rollers’ different nap thickness matter, but the material and the brand matters too. Different paints have specific roller brands they pair the best with, and the folks at Sherwin-Williams will know which ones to recommend.

You’ll also want the following materials:

• Canvas Dropcloths
• Plastic Sheeting (we found it helpful to put down canvas dropcloths and then cover any furniture we couldn’t move with plastic sheeting and tape that down)
• Poles (get a couple of these so you and your partner can paint ceiling/high spots on the wall at the same time)
• Trays
• Liners
• Buckets (For soaking your painting tools in water after you’ve finished)
• Frog tape (For taping off trim, taping canvas cloths to baseboards, etc. You’ll need A LOT of this.)
• Spackle/putty (for patching up holes)
• Mini rollers (for a second coat on wall corners)
• Brushes (for trim and wall corners)
• Painter’s Tool (for scraping off excess paint when cleaning your rollers)

Technique:

Alright, so to round out this post, here are some of my best tips and painting techniques that we learned along the way.

As beginners, I wish I knew these thing ahead of time, haha.

Start with your least important/visible room

If this is your first time painting, I highly recommend you start with the room you care the least about and is the least used/visible.

I’m so glad we did that beause we definitely learned some things along the way that helped us for our other rooms!

For example, we realized we were using a roller that did not have the right thickness for our textured walls. Lesson learned!

Prep

Prepping the room is definitely the least fun and most boring part about painting (well, that and the clean-up), but it’s definitely important and you’ll want to prep the entire room before diving into painting.

If possible, try to remove all of your furniture from that space. While it might sound tempting at first to just cover your furniture, it ends up being a bigger pain than just moving it, plus it gets in the way.

Remove wall outlet covers and fixtures

It is 100% worth it to take the time to remove all your outlet covers and light fixtures, AND cover anything that remains (like the actual outlet) with frog tape.

The previous owners of our house obviously did not cover the outlet faces and it is v annoying to have their old paint streaks on them, lol.

Do two coats

It’s standard practice to do two coats of your paint.

Since we went with Sherwin-Williams’ Emerald paint, we didn’t need to use a primer first, as it’s a 2-in-1 paint and primer. Yay for efficiency and saving time!

Accent walls

I’ll admit, I was kind of against doing any accent walls in the house, but my architect husband convinced me to try a couple (his argument was if I don’t like it, it’s just paint, we can always paint over it!) and I’m so glad he did because they look great.

If you’re considering an accent wall and wondering what colors go with Greek Villa, the good news is it’s such a beautiful soft white that truly any color will look great with it.

Coordinating colors with Greek Villa really just depends on what vibe you want in your space.

We used Cityscape for two accent walls in our bedroom—one in a little nook where I have my vanity table, and one for the wall directly across from our bed.

Omied suggested this because on that wall we have a white dresser with a TV on top of it, and he said the white on white wouldn’t look great, plus the light grey wall would help the black TV blend in better, rather than being a stark black screen against a white backdrop.

He was absolutely right!

We also used Cityscape for an accent wall downstairs.

We have a wall that kind of creates a short hallway from the dining room area into the open family room and kitchen. While I wish we could just get rid of that wall, it’s load-baring.

When Omied suggested painting that wall an accent color, again I was against it. I thought it would make that wall stand out even more than it already did.

But we gave it a shot and guess what? It looks amazing.

Painting it an accent color actually made it blend in more and look intentional, which I wasn’t expecting.

When my mom saw it she was like, “OMG it looks SO much better! That wall looked a little odd and stuck out before, but now it looks like it’s meant to be there and it’s really pretty.”

So I guess what I’m saying is to not be afraid to experiment with accent walls!

Caulk is your friend for accent walls

If you are doing any accent walls. or if your wall color is a different color than your ceiling (for example we have friends who are doing gray walls and white ceilings throughout their house), you will likely want to caulk the wall/ceiling corners before painting—especially if your walls are textured.

This is because it’s basically impossible to use frog paint on a textured wall and get a straight paint line.

By caulking it, you’ll have a smooth line where the wall and ceiling meet, and your tape will lie flat, giving you a perfect, straight line where your two different paint colors meet.

Removing tape

Immediately after you’ve finished your second coat, remove any tape from your trim, baseboards, wall outlets, etc.

Don’t wait for your paint to dry before removing your tape, as this makes it more difficult to remove the tape and you’ll end up with some chunks of tape stuck in your paint.

Don’t let your paint sit out

Taking a lunch break? Don’t let your tray with paint and your rollers sit out in the open air.

Cover your tray with your rollers in it with saran wrap to keep the paint from drying out. I wouldn’t leave it out for more than 30 minutes.

Ok, those are all my painting tips for first-timers! I’m also including a few more photos below of our rooms with Sherwin Williams Greek Villa. We are so in love with how it looks! We felt like it was the perfect soft white and backdrop for our furniture. It’s light and bright and goes with our Mid-Century Modern furniture and Scandi-Boho vibes. Sherwin-Williams has so many whites to choose from, you’ll definitely be able to find the perfect one for you!

Thank you so much to Sherwin-Williams for gifting our paint and materials!

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