Gray paint is all the rage right now, and I’m ready to change my family room walls from beige to gray. So, I’m in search of the perfect gray paint. Does it exist? Let’s find out together, shall we?

Grays are really tricky.  They each have their own undertones (hints of blue or green, for example), and they all look different depending on the lighting in your particular room.  What looks beautiful in a picture on the internet can look altogether awful in your own house.  But, I am determined to take on this gray paint challenge and find the perfect shade for our family room.  With my Benjamin Moore color wheels in tow, I invite you to follow along on my gray paint journey, and hope you can help me decide on “the one.”

The Room

Here is a picture of our family room the way it looks today.  We’ve got lots of beige going on in here with the wall color and the couch. I think some gray paint (and a new rug, and maybe a new ottoman) will really change the look of the room.

famliy room

I’ve consulted my color wheels, and I’ve done lots of searching on the internet for the perfect gray paint. I’ve poured over Pinterest pictures, Houzz pictures, and read other blog posts, and I’ve finally narrowed it down to the following Benjamin Moore colors.

The “Perfect Gray Paint” Candidates

perfect gray paint, Benjamin Moore gray paint, Stonington Gray, Gray Owl, Revere Pewter, Nimbus, Smoke Embers, Silver Chain

I was originally thinking that Revere Pewter or Stonington Gray would work best in our house, based on pictures I liked online. When you see Revere Pewter in pictures of rooms online, it can look much more gray than beige. But, it’s really somewhere in between – a “greige.”

I headed over to the paint store for some samples of Revere Pewter and Stonington Gray, and painted each color on some foam poster board.  I’ve been looking at the samples for a couple of days now, and the good news is that I think I can eliminate one. The bad news is that I need to go back to the paint store and get some more paint samples because I don’t think I’ve found “the one.”  Here is a picture of the samples in the room at night.

Samples of Benjamin Moore's Revere Pewter and Stonington Gray

Samples of Benjamin Moore’s Revere Pewter and Stonington Gray

The Perfect Shade?

The Stonington Gray is on top, and the Revere Pewter is on the bottom.  They are both beautiful colors, but the Revere Pewter in our house looks like a lighter (albeit better) version of what we currently have on the walls.  The Stonington Gray looks really nice at night, but in the daytime it takes on a slight hint of baby blue that makes it a “probably not.”

I really don’t know why I thought I could just easily narrow it down to just two shades of gray from the start. So, it’s back to the paint store this weekend to get samples of the other colors I listed above.  The gray paints have beaten me this time around, but I will prevail in the end.  Stay tuned for round #2 of my search for the perfect gray paint.

Continue the saga…jump to The Perfect Gray Paint, Part II