Small Bedroom Design: SW Still Water Paint Review (Part 2)

I know it sounds dramatic, but paint really can carry a whole room. It’s the easiest, cheapest way to take a space from “meh” to “how you doin’?”.

Which brings me to the room we are talking about. You know, the weird one. The long narrow one tacked onto the back of our house with the squatty three-foot sloped ceiling and no closet.

Enter, paint. Beautiful, magical paint. Specifically, Sherwin-Williams Still Water. This color took the space from feeling like an awkward addition (which it is) to appearing like an intentional design choice.

This is normally the part where I’d show you gorgeous progress photos of the room freshly painted, but here’s the thing…they don’t exist. I didn’t take them. The remodel was moving too fast, and apparently I thought “Ehh, future me will figure it out.” But future me is annoyed, and present me is having to improvise with blurry Instagram Story screenshots.

It’s terrible, I know. Here’s an only slightly better one of the other side of the room.

Stick with me…the good pictures will come. For now, we’re going to dive into some nerdy paint science…because if there’s one thing I will happily nerd out about, it’s paint.

Meet Still Water

Let’s start with the facts:

• Paint brand: Sherwin-Williams
• Color code: SW 6223
• LRV (Light Reflectance Value): 10
• Color: A moody blue with green/gray undertones

What is LRV (Light Reflective Value)?

The LRV of paint is basically how much light a color reflects. The scale goes from 0 (pure black) to 100 (pure white). At 10, Still Water is really, really dark.

Still Water is the darkest paint color on the paint strip that includes colors like Tradewind, Rain, Moody Blue, and Riverway. In other words, this paint strip is full of some of my favorite Sherwin-Williams colors. It’s the paint strip equivalent of a skip-album, the one where every single song is an absolute banger.

Actually, I just realized that Moody Blue is the color I chose for the office cabinets, so I can confirm….banger.

Undertones (a.k.a why paint sometimes lies to you)

If you’ve ever watched a paint color get mixed at the store, then you know that every paint color has a formula. Like a paint recipe. Every paint color is a mixture of a few different, simpler colors. So every paint is a color that has its “main” personality, and then it’s got these sneaky sidekicks. The sneaky sidekicks are the undertone.

So on the surface, Still Water is blue. But its undertones are gray-green, which is why it feels layered and interesting. It’s not the straightforward blue you get out of a box of crayons, it’s…harder to pin down. Complicated. And like most paint colors, it shifts depending on the light.

How Light Affects Paint Colors

Like I said, paint colors are sneaky. They don’t just sit on your wall looking the same all day long… they shift, they change, sometimes they straight-up lie to you. And the biggest culprits behind that? Which way your windows face, and what time of day it is. If you’ve ever wondered why your “perfect beige” looks like diaper waste in the afternoon, this is why. So let’s dive into a quick “light and paint” crash course.

Light by orientation:

(This is in the Northern Hemisphere. If you’re in the Southern Hemisphere, flip north and south. The effect is the same, just reversed.)

• North: Light is cool and gray, makes colors look more muted.
• South: Light is warm, bright, and consistent. Colors are more true to the paint chip.
• East: Light is golden in the mornings, flat in the afternoons.
• West: Light is dim in the mornings, glowing in the evenings.

Light by time of day:

• Morning: Soft, low light. Warm in rooms with east-facing windows, cave-like everywhere else.
• Afternoon: Brightest light, and the most neutral. Shows undertones most clearly.
• Evening: Warm and dramatic. Pushes red/orange into everything.

This is why you always need to test paint colors in your light before committing. I recommend peel-and-stick samples from Samplize. They are way cleaner, easier, and quicker than painting 14 swatches on every wall.

GET YOUR SAMPLE OF STILL WATER

The bedroom in my house only has only one window, which faces southwest. This means the color is fairly consistent, but slightly darker and cooler in the mornings and a bit brighter in the afternoons.

Why Dark Colors Can Work in a Small Room

Conventional wisdom says light colors make a room feel bigger, and dark colors make a room feel smaller. Which is generally true. But here’s the thing – some spaces are never going to feel big. Ever. In this room, the ceilings are short, half the space isn’t even standable, and it’s more cozy-cave than airy-retreat. No amount of white paint was going to trick anyone into thinking they’d walked into a roomy oasis.

So instead of forcing the space to be something it isn’t, you gotta embrace it for who it is. Which is this case is small and dark (or as the magazines would say, “intimate”).

Additionally, you need to consider the room’s purpose. This is a bedroom for a teenage boy, or as a guest room. Translation: it’s a place to sleep, crash, wind down. If this room was something that required more energy like a playroom, office, or gym, then a dark color wouldn’t have been the best choice. A powder bath, dining room, or library? Dark totally works.

Color Drenching

Of course, just painting the walls dark wasn’t enough for this space. I went all in and painted the ceiling, baseboards, trim, shelves, outlet covers, even the air vent. Everything got coated in Still Water.

Yes, it makes the room darker (obviously), but it also makes it feel finished and intentional. Leaving the ceiling and trim white would’ve shouted, “Look how short I am!” The contrast would have chopped the room into awkward little sections and emphasized just how not open and airy it actually is.

So now, instead of a bunch of broken-up lines fighting for attention, the whole room now dissolves into a moody envelope of color. Instead of feeling like the ceiling is closing in on you, it just… disappears. It opens the room by closing it off. Which makes absolutely no sense until you see it.

What Pairs Well With Still Water

Here’s the thing about a dark, cool color like Still Water – it needs warmth to balance it out. Pair it with the right things, and it feels cozy and balanced. Pair it with the wrong things, and it’s likely to feel cold and uninviting.

Pair Still Water with:

• Warm woods
• Leather tones
• Complementary colors (dirty oranges, yellows, and browns)
• Brass & gold accents

Here’s an example of pairing Still Water with warmer tones (and a teaser for Part 3) –

So yeah. A dark, moody blue-green just saved my weird little room. Who knew? Next time I’ll show you the finished space…because right now you’re probably tired of hearing me talk about paint when what you really want are the pretty pictures.

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE FINISHED BEDROOM