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The perfect gray is...

zoebartlett

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My husband and I are having the interior of our new house painted before we move in. Painting is beginning next week, and I can't commit to a light shade of gray or greige. Everything I've tried has been too dark like putty or too blue, purple, or green.

We would love to choose a neutral that can truly go with anything. Right now, we have very dark bamboo floors, but someday within the next few years, I'd love to change to light hardwood. Our couches are green but we're planning on replacing them and will probably go with navy.

Our painter would prefer to use Sherwin Williams paint. We're fine with choosing a Benjamin Moore color and having it color matched. Ones we've tried are:

BM Gray Owl (too green)
BM Revere Pewter (dark beige, putty, no good)
BM Edgecomb Gray (This looked strictly beige.)
BM Stonington (too blue)
SW Agreeable Gray (Almost the same as Edgecomb)
SW Snowfall (too white)


I'd love other recommendations! Our house faces north west I think, so it doesn't get a ton of natural light, if that's something we should consider.
 

PintoBean

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HAHA - I think I can help!
I have Revere Pewter AND Edgecomb gray in my house!
- this I describe as more of a cool/neutral beige, even though they put it in the gray family
Edgecomb is warm as well.

Give Wickham Gray a shot. Let me see if I can get a good picture for you.
 

redwood66

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What about BM - Iced Cube Silver or Silver Half Dollar? Gray Cloud is nice too.
 

PintoBean

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The lighting is really warping my pics. My ceiling light runs very warm. First up is some pillows with charcoal Against wickham. It looks beige on my iphone :angryfire: . grrr....

Next is a pic that captures edgecomb on left and wickham in bathroom. image_1188.jpg image_1189.jpg
 

momhappy

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The other thing to keep in mind is the interior lighting in your home. I know that our gray kitchen looked much different when we installed LED lighting, so that can really affect how a color looks when it's on your walls vs. in a can. Good luck on your choice!
 

zoebartlett

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Thanks so much, Pinto! I love Revere Pewter and Edgecomb, but they're too beige for what I'm looking for. In pictures I've seen on Houzz or Google, Wickham looks bluish gray, but I might try it anyway. I do like the swatch.
 

zoebartlett

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Thank you, Redwood! I'll look at those, too.
 

maccers

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redwood66

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Zoe|1477515760|4090878 said:
Thank you, Redwood! I'll look at those, too.

You are welcome. I had a terrible time picking our exterior green house color. Too blue or too yellow for most greens.
 

Calliecake

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Please keep in mind Zoe that paint looks very different in different lighting. It's so hard picking paint colors.
 

AGBF

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I have been looking among the Benjamin Moore colors for the gray I used in my house for the better part of the day. I cannot recall the exact name. It may be "Seawall Gray", but I am not sure. I also cannot find the new camera I bought within the last year because as we remodeled (and painted) I put a lot of things (including the still packed, new camera) away and never unpacked them. So I cannot take photos of the gray walls! I know the name has "Sea" in it and that it is a two word name. But if it isn't "SeaWALL", it could be "Sea SomethingElse". So far none of the other Benjamin Moore names I have come across are the one I used. And my color is fabulous. But it is a true gray, not at all beige.

Deb :wavey:
 

diamondseeker2006

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AGBF|1477532745|4090993 said:
I have been looking among the Benjamin Moore colors for the gray I used in my house for the better part of the day. I cannot recall the exact name. It may be "Seawall Gray", but I am not sure. I also cannot find the new camera I bought within the last year because as we remodeled (and painted) I put a lot of things (including the still packed, new camera) away and never unpacked them. So I cannot take photos of the gray walls! I know the name has "Sea" in it and that it is a two word name. But if it isn't "SeaWALL", it could be "Sea SomethingElse". So far none of the other Benjamin Moore names I have come across are the one I used. And my color is fabulous. But it is a true gray, not at all beige.

Deb :wavey:

By chance is it Sea Star?

https://www.benjaminmoore.com/en-us/color-overview/find-your-color/color/2123-30/sea-star?color=2123-30
 

AGBF

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diamondseeker2006|1477534113|4090997 said:
AGBF|1477532745|4090993 said:
I have been looking among the Benjamin Moore colors for the gray I used in my house for the better part of the day. I cannot recall the exact name. It may be "Seawall Gray", but I am not sure. I also cannot find the new camera I bought within the last year because as we remodeled (and painted) I put a lot of things (including the still packed, new camera) away and never unpacked them. So I cannot take photos of the gray walls! I know the name has "Sea" in it and that it is a two word name. But if it isn't "SeaWALL", it could be "Sea SomethingElse". So far none of the other Benjamin Moore names I have come across are the one I used. And my color is fabulous. But it is a true gray, not at all beige.

Deb

By chance is it Sea Star?

https://www.benjaminmoore.com/en-us/color-overview/find-your-color/color/2123-30/sea-star?color=2123-30

Thank you for the idea, DS, but I don't think so. I believe it was "Sea Something Gray", with the word "gray" in the paint's title. I also think that the color was less green than the color shown (at least as it appears on my monitor). But as this is driving me mad, any help is deeply appreciated!

I have, now, e-mailed both my contractor and a good friend on whose bathroom he ended up using a can of my paint! I thought one of them might remember the name of the color. Thanks again.

Deb :wavey:
 

House Cat

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How are you viewing your samples? Someone on this forum suggested that you paint the samples on a foam poster board instead of the wall. This way you can move the sample from room to room. I also found this useful because I wasn't painting the sample on the wall and the wall color did not influence my sample.

Other factors that might be influencing your sample, trim color and floor color.

This might sound obvious, but have you asked the people down at SW or BM for a "true" gray with no undertones? You can take that color home, get it painted on a board and see what happens in your light. If it turns blue, then you probably want to choose a warmer gray and it will look neutral in your room. You can ask your painter if he has an extra fan deck for you to borrow. That way you can look at colors against your sample to see what might be a good candidate to balance your color right there in your home.

Does your painter have suggestions? There was a time when I was trying to paint my living room a beautiful shade of light blue. I painted samples, etc and chose the lightest shade, but when we started painting, the room turned to baby boy nursery blue. Back to the paint store. A painter told me that blues were tricky and most of the time when you want a light blue room, you need to choose light green! He was right! I chose Sea Salt at 50% and my room was light blue, even though that color is green. Paint is weird. Painters do this all of the time. They should know color.

We painted my son's room a true gray and I hated it. It felt flat and elementary to me. Luckily, it was in a little boy's room. I think a gray needs some sort of undertone to give it sophistication. It doesn't need much, maybe a hint of cream... That way the woodwork doesn't have to be stark white and the room can look rich. Although, I just painted a good portion of my house Simply White, which is about as white as it gets and I love it with all of my heart!
 

soxfan

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BM coventry gray.
 

zoebartlett

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Maccers, beautiful colors! I'm looking for a lighter gray, like Heather gray, but I love the colors you mentioned, especially Pebble Beach.

Deb, could you be thinking of Seattle Gray or Sea Haze?

Our house doesn't seem to get the best natural light, so everything I've picked so far seems pretty dark. That's the opposite of the light and airy vibe I'm going for. So frustrating.
 

zoebartlett

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Callie, I must have said "That's the one!" about 10 times before bringing the sample boards I painted to the house and seeing it other lighting.

Soxfan, thanks for the recommendation for Coventry Gray.

Pinto, I've read that post and watched videos from Kylie. She's good. My head spins after a while though.
 

zoebartlett

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House Cat, I've used foam board for all the samples I've painted. I've asked both SW and BM sales people for their suggestions and they both said it was hard because everyone looks for something different in their grays. Not very helpful. Our painter is meeting us at the house on Saturday to go over colors. He's starting on Monday, so we need to decide ASAP.
 

Garnetgirl

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I'm not usually a fan of gray but needed a shade of gray to go with a BM Stratford Blue accent wall and Cloud White ceiling. I finally chose Gray Owl, with the help of a decorator at the paint store.
Of course, lighting really affects our perception of colour. My Gray Owl is in a basement room with a couple of small south facing windows. It seems to go well with blue, and doesn't look greenish to me. Don't know of this is helpful to you at all. :wink2:
 

Garnetgirl

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Zoe, I'd like to add that I just looked at my paint sample card. Gray Owl DOES seem to be a bit greenish on the sample. But on my walls, it doesn't at all; however, it's definitely a warm gray.
(I have a blue sofa, and floor tiles are bluish gray, so I think any green cast would show up next to the tiles)
The slight difference between the store samples and the final painted walls makes it hard to discern small nuances of colour. As other posters suggested, painting out small trials on foam board and moving them around will probably help you make the most educated guess.
Have fun decorating your new home. =)
 

baby monster

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A good neutral light gray is BM American White 2112-70. Slightly darker - BM Harbor Gray AC-25 or Stonington Gray HC-170. BM Covetry Gray is slightly darker than Stonington. I'm not a fan of boards and painted samples right on the wall because different finishes absorb paint differently to give slightly different tings.
 

Yimmers

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I actually have Revere Pewter in my house and loved how it turned out.

Try SW Gray Owl. It's one of Emily Henderson's favorite grays.
 

zoebartlett

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*** Update ***

We met with our painter at the house today. After looking at all the foam board samples I had laid out, we chose Benjamin Moore Stonington. Gray Owl and Wickham Gray were our other strongest contenders.

After deciding on that, we went upstairs to talk about the bedrooms. Our painter suggested painting the sloped ceilings of the dormers the same white as the rest of the ceilings. I never would have thought to do that. Here's a picture of a bedroom that looks almost identical to ours to show you what I mean. It's an interesting idea.

4a6b9d785e102662acc06b32684a8beb.jpg
 

zoebartlett

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Thanks for the recommendations, Garnetgirl, Baby Monster, and Yimmers. I wanted to love Revere Pewter because it looks great in other homes, but not in ours. It was way too dark and tan.
 

zoebartlett

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While this isn't our bedroom, this picture is a good representation of what the bedroom looks like now. The walls and the sloped dormer are painted the same color.

decor_pad_bella_mancini.jpg
 

AGBF

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Our contractor said the name of our paint was sea wall Gray, so i did yet another search on-line. I think that I must have gotten True Value paint or at least found the color in a True value hardware store. I don't know who the contractor used to mix the color in the end. It may have been Benjamin Moore paint. But there is a Sea Wall color (D402) by True Value and the color samples I got were all from a True Value hardware store. The on-line sample looks much lighter than what is on my walls, but I am putting it up here. It is a true gray.

Link...https://www.truevaluepaint.com/explore-color/color/Sea-Wall

Deb/AGBF

seawall.jpg
 
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