50 Shades of Grey... Literally

Let's talk about paint colors... shall we?

Let me start this off by admitting that I had no idea how hard it would be to pick a shade of grey.  I mean, I thought I was going to be all clever with the title of this post, but I literally ended up evaluating just about 50 shades of grey... and that was after I had narrowed it down!!

I wanted something light and bright - no yellow undertones, but not too "cool" of a color either.  Just a perfect, clean, true grey.  To cut to the chase, I ended up with Grey Owl, by Benjamin Moore, but ending up with this decision was NOT an easy one...

Here's where I started...

Yeah... lots of options... too many options...

Here's where I narrowed it down to...

I decided to do a little Google image search, and found a few that I loved.  Sleigh Bells had been a front runner from the paint chip, but in the pictures it looked really steely and well... silvery.  Just. Like. A. Sligh Bell.  Duh.

Coventry Grey really appealed to me as well, but it looked a bit darker than I'd been thinking, and since the dining room doesn't get a TON of natural light, it would have been a bit too risky...

Smoke Embers and Nimbus were a little on the "beige" side of the spectrum, and so I was really looking at White Whisp and Grey Owl.

White whisp was too white, and I really wanted the freshly painted trim to pop, so I ended up choosing Grey Owl.  As if it were fate, just before heading out for my paint, I read a blog post by Emily Henderson of Style by Emily Henderson, where she mentioned that Grey Owl is her go-to grey paint.

Sooo... I would pretty much follow Miss Henderson off a cliff (if you have not read her blog, DO - she is my hero and I love LOOVVVEEEE everything she designs), and so I took it as a sign that "Grey Owl" was the one for me.  For easy reference at Benjamin Moore, it can be found on paint chip 2137.

Here's how it looks after two coats of fresh paint - I had them mix up primer and paint in one, and two coats covered beautifully.

It's light enough that it doesn't make this small room feel smaller, and it doesn't make it feel gloomy, even on foggy days (which we've had an abundance of since I painted the walls).

The trim still pops, and the color doesn't feel disjointed from the rest of the apartment (which does not have another "colored" wall in it).  I am SO HAPPY with Grey Owl - I would paint every wall in our house this color, if I had the energy in me...

This is a great before picture - I don't have a ton of pictures of this room, just because it's so dang small and hard to photograph.  Even though the walls have been painted, you can see that the layout was just not working (and we've lived with this layout for almost two years! Dah!)

The rug is WAY TOO SMALL for the room, the table blocks the pass-through from the living room to the hall... it just had to change.  But look at that paint... one step closer!!

More updates to come... stay tuned....