Gray = Happiness

Most people don't associate the color gray with utter happiness but let me tell you - gray get's a bad reputation! No other color can add such classiness and drama to a room while coordinating beautifully setting the stage for accent colors like blue and yellow. Need more proof? Look at our adventures in deciding three perfect grays for our junior suite renovation.

Where To Start When Selecting Paint Colors
For me it's all about looking at what other designers (both profesional and personal) have done. This involves reading through my five design magazines (Traditional Home, Elle Decor, House Beautiful, Architectural Digest, Veranda), saving posts from my favorite design blogs (Desire to Inspire, Apartment Therapy, Design Actually, Design*Sponge, Mix and Chic, Elegant Abode). Once I decided on a few base colors, I also used the tool on Benjamin Moore to find coordinating shades for bathroom and reading nook.

Some images that drew me in:

Our Trial Begins
After scouring the images I narrowed down the gray shades to seven I wanted to see on the walls:

1. Nightingale
2. Storm
3. Almost Black 
4. Pearl Gray 
5. Marina Gray 
6. Graytint
7. Alaskan Skie

If you are going through a similar process, I'd recommend stopping by your local paint store. Ours has a selection of large 18"x18" paint chip sheets they'll lend you which is actually easier/cheaper than buying the sample quart pots. They're large enough for you to get a sense of the color but then easy to move around to different spaces to see how the light impacts the color. For us we were able to get two sheets and then purchased the remaining five colors in 1 quart pots.

Results:

Pearl Gray (gorgeous but blue tint was too much) 

(left) Almost Black (right) Graytint

Almost Black & Graytint

(left) Alaskan Skie (right) Pearl Gray

(left) Alaskan Skie (right) Marina Gray

Nightingale

Storm

Check back in to see which colors we picked.