Good Lord, why does picking out paint have to be SO blessed hard? I decided a few years ago when we started renovating this old house that I was going to stick with shades of neutral gray thinking it would keep things easy, but no….there has been nothing easy about it. Nothing easy at all!
When we did our living room a few years ago, I slathered shades of gray on all of the walls to see what I liked and hit it on the nail with Benjamin Moore's Coastal Gray, which is a green based gray. I was and still am so happy with it.
When we did the dining room, Ken requested that we use a more pure gray color. Well, the first choice that we put up looked almost pink…ick.
Ken being the frugal guy that he is, had our local paint guy balance it out to a more even gray and we went with that, but to be honest with you, I have never liked it. It's a cold gray and I am a warm colored person. It's been up long enough now that it will be safe for me to change it..ha!
So…I thought that I would love to put the Coastal Gray in my kitchen, but my floor is more of a blue gray with shades of soft gray brown, so again another different shade of gray for the kitchen and mud room. These colors pictured are not very accurate, but you get the sense of my struggle.
I need more of a brown gray or a blue gray and given that I am not a huge fan of blue, I am leaning more towards a brown based gray. Ey yi yi! I've narrowed it down to these 3 and think I will probably go with the one on the far right and have them desaturate it by 10%. The one on the far left matches the bathroom floor tiles the best, but the amount of purple that I see makes me hesitate to paint a big kitchen with it.
See…..you can make yourself crazy!
The Woolen Rabbit 
The thing that really drives me crazy about paint color is how it looks different at different times of day. I once painted my living room “cream” in the morning but when the evening light hit the walls, they looked green yellow. We’re talking body fluids hue. I re-painted the next day!
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I feel your pain! I just painted Dans room “tan” and at times I think it looks like it came out of a baby diaper! 🙂
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So hard. I like the one on the right too. Hoping it looks wonderful in it’s final formulation.
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I made myself (and Smith) so crazy we went with white. 🙂 Gray is a tough one as they have so many bases you can use, but you’re on the right track with a warm, taupe-y colored gray.
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I feel your paint. We remodeled the living room and the taupe we used on one wall and the fireplace doesn’t look like the same color on the fireplace. Arggghhh! You sound like you WILL get it right!
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I went through the same process when we painted that tiny den of ours grey. There are so many different shades and they look different in different lights and on different surfaces. I like what I choose but it’s a little more blue than I had hoped it would be.
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I always put up big swatches and live with them for a few days.
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I’m a quick-decision kind of person, myself. (If I think too much, I make myself crazy.) You’re so great with color, Kim. Just go with your first instinct! (And . . . good luck.)
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I totally feel your pain. I’ve been trying to pick paint colors for the living room and I can’t find the right shade of brown. The kid who mixes the paint samples at the Kelly Moore store knows me by name. He greeted me the other day with, “oh, you’re back again?” LOL
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