​From 50 shades to 4 shades of gray

 Picking the right shade of gray for your home can be a challenge. When it comes to gray tones, picking the right shade can make our break your homes interior design. When they say 50 shades of gray, it’s more like an infinite amount of shades. How do you pick the right one? 

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We headed to our local hardware store to start looking at all the different options. After about 45 minutes of standing there with my finger in my nose and an overwhelming array of possibilities, I started to feel dazed. My mind started to play tricks on me and I wasn’t getting anywhere. I would pick up a swatch and say, “yes I found my gray”! But then, I would move a few shades down and find another shade that I thought was the same color. Once I compared the two I could see tones of blue, green or purple in each gray. How can you pick the right one????!?!?!?
 
After battling back and forth between colors and a nauseating overload, I decided to leave empty handed. This was a big decision for our new house and I had to make sure I was making the right one. I headed home and jumped online to see what others were doing about color choices in their homes. After some research I found some great tips and tricks when it comes to picking that perfect shade of gray. Now, time to test the theories...

My husband and I found a few photos of kitchen and living rooms from others who have painted with grey colors and found out what color and brand they used. We headed back to the store and without looking too hard into the other colors, we had the tec make up samples of the 4 colors we decided to go with based on the online research. One of the tricks we learned was to make sure to test the colors on multiple walls around your home: Living room, kitchen, family room, office, stairway, master bedroom and bathroom. We placed all 4 colors on the wall and wrote below what colors they were. After letting the paint dry, we went back to our locations to rate each color. We changed the lighting from natural light to artificial lighting to get a feel for each color. We began to rate each room based on our favorite colors we placed on the walls and then compared our answers. This seemed to be a great way to get multiple sets of eyes on the colors without feeling like they are meshing into each other. 

We finally decided on a gray!!! The process was so easy and simple. We are going to go with the
​Sherwin Williams Mindful Gray. It is going to be exactly what we are looking for in a gray shade. It’s not blue, it’s not green and it’s not brown. It feels like an authentic true gray that doesn’t sway one way on the color spectrum.

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​We can’t wait to get this project started and show you the after photos of our home! 
 
Stay tuned