Shades of gray (literally)!

I have always heard that grays and creams are some of the hardest paint colors to pick.  I’ve decided I might just concur with that!  Actually, I had some pretty specific criteria in mind when I first decided that a shade of gray was in order, but the most important was that it needed to go with my husband’s collegiate colors; K-State purple.  I know I may sound a little nutty when I say this, but after seeing this purple against one of the neutrals shades of paint we have in our home, in my husband’s temporary “man heaven”, I decided that we had to do much better in our basement.

Temporary Man Heaven

The pennant gives you a little idea of the purple on our tan/neutral...

I specifically was hoping for a blue-silver-gray color, one that would read in a way that didn’t feel too…sterile (as gray’s so often can).  I landed on three potential candidates from Benjamin Moore.

Gull Wing Gray

Shadow Gray

Fusion

Fusion does read more brown than blue-gray, but I did (and do) love it.  Ultimately, I ruled it out because of how similar it was to the color in our upstairs living room (Sherwin Williams-Portabella).  Besides, a gal needs to branch out now and then, right?  

Right!  Maybe.  Can I sleep on it?

After BT (my great husband) and I finished painting the basement, I took a long pause and tried to keep myself from panicking that I had chosen the wrong color.  When the paint was wet, there were moments where I swear it read as periwinkle.  I don’t like periwinkle, in fact, I absolutely hate periwinkle!

After a night of running up and down the stairs and obsessively staring at our walls, I’m happy to report that our walls are not periwinkle!  In fact, it’s actually a really pretty shade of blue-silver-gray and it passed the K-State purple test with flying colors.  It also pops nicely with the white trim and doors.

It must have been those gray, cement floors throwing me off.  Or, too many paint fumes…but either way, Shadow Gray is here to stay!

Enjoy the rest of this beautiful weekend; it's gorgeous outside!  In fact, I might go look at some flowers for our outside planters...

Stairwell to the basement

This will become the TV wall; placeholders for speakers!

Left corner will become a bar area

Pardon our mess; freshly painted baseboards!