Gray Cloud

I've finally take the plunge....or at least am planning to take the plunge.  After eight years of living with pale yellow living room walls that I never really liked we're going grey.  Yellow's just not my color and grey paint makes me happy (I'm a beachy kinda girl).  I'm not really sure why, but painting the living room has always seemed daunting to me.  I know it's only paint, but it seems soo permanent.  What if I don't like the color I choose?  Which has lead to many, many, many trips to the hardware and paint store for swatches and sample paint in search of the perfect grey.   My first trip to the store involved collecting every grey color sample known to man Benjamin Moore then putting them up on the wall, and slowly over the course of a month pulling down the ones I didn't like.  At the end of the month I had narrowed it down to three colors.  Then I went to home depot and had my three favorite colors plus one lighter and one darker shade matched in Behr paint.  There in lies rookie mistake #1: always buy the actual paint you will be using-even if it costs a dollar or two more per sample.  Rookie mistake #2: painting the sample paint on my yellow walls without priming them first.  Yup, I'm a rookie at this whole painting walls thing.  Here's what the colors looked like on the yellow wall.

Top row: BM Moonshine, BM Moonshine color matched in Behr,  BM Grey Owl color matched in Behr, BM Stonington color matched in Behr, BM Grey Owl
Middle Row: BM Bunny Gray, BM Sweet Innocence, BM Grey Cloud, BM Marilyn's Dress (all color matched in Behr)
Bottom (barely visible): BM Classic Grey

Most look blue right? Wrong...they are grey.  I had read that cool grays can read blue in some rooms depending on which direction the light is coming from (north facing light reads cool while south facing light reads warm).  While we have a northwest facing room, it didn't seem possible that such neutral grays could read so blue on the wall and the green grays could read so neutral grey.  Then it dawned on me (not sure why I didn't think of it in the beginning) that I shouldn't be painting over the yellow.  Also, I was a bit nervous using the color matched paint when I knew I'd be using the BM paint in the end so I compared the two.  Yeah, the color matched Behr version was much bluer, and almost a shade lighter than the actual BM color.  Glad my paranoid self decided to compare. Here are the colors on the primed wall.  They look more grey now right?  They're the same colors.

Top: BM Gray Cloud; BM Bunny Gray
Middle: BM Classic Gray, BM Gray Cloud (color matched in Behr), BM Bunny Gray (color matched in Behr)
Bottom: BM Gray Owl, BM Moonshine

And the winner is.....BM Gray Cloud.  The colors don't look too different from each other on the computer screen, but in person the bottom two colors (Grey Owl and Moonshine read a very brown/green).  The Classic Grey reads more beige.  I really liked the Grey Cloud color matched in Behr but it's very green in person and I was worried that it would be too much once the whole living room and hallway are painted.  The Gray Cloud and Bunny Gray are almost indistinguishable, but the Gray Cloud is just a tad lighter.  Our living room is pretty small and while I want something that will make the moulding pop, I don't want our room to feel like a cave.  I'm so excited to FINALLY paint (or more like be done with painting), but also scared that once it's up on the wall won't be that perfect shade of gray.  Only time will tell, but painting commences next week so we'll know soon enough.