Recently I bought (after measuring very carefully to make sure they were not too tall!) floor to ceiling dark brown, stained and lacquered bookcases from a store that was going out of business and selling (or basically giving away) their display cases. I filled in a few screwholes with plastic wood, lightly sanded a few rough areas, painted the cases inside and out with a good-quality white primer (this is the essential step!), sanded away any drip marks, and then finished with two coats of the same paint my daughter and son-in-law had used to paint the woodwork in the house they had recently bought. I had a handyman bolt them to the walls on either side of the living room fireplace and then add trim around the top which matches the rest of that in the room. The bookcases look completely built in. They were excellent quality pieces with crown moldings and striated rails---they look wonderful!! No one would ever guess in their previous life they were old brown dismanteled display cases from a store that had gone out of business! Paint will do wonders. As for the pulls, don't dream of trying to paint them-- take one of the old ones to Home Depot or a local hardware store. They will help you buy new ones which will fit the existing holes (never try to drill new holes--that leads to real problems which a coat of paint can't fix!!) Good luck with your daughter's room--I know it will be beautiful and she will appreciate your hard work as my daughter and her husband did.

I have painted a number of squares of RH Butter on the walls, and I love it. I have samples of the two SW colors, but I don't think I'm going to put them up. They are both darker than the Butter, and I don't think I want to go darker. I would have liked to try the EK Honeysuckle, but as far as I can tell that paint has to be ordered, and I don't want to take the time to order a sample and then order the paint. I hope that the Butter looks good next to the two full-spectrum paints. I'll post photos when it is done. Thank you all, so much, for your help! scanmike, thank you for the comment about the finish. I had thought of matching the Butter in BM, because the closest RH is out of it (and the website is doing inventory and not shipping for a week). I did find it in the second closest store, though, so I will get it on Saturday. By coincidence, I just put up squares of Cappuccino in my new bathroom, and I think I am going to use that, too! I wish RH made towels in that color; unfortunately, they don't seem to.

Hi - We just painted our entire first floor in Farrow & Ball "old white", which is a taupe-y grey. In some light, it also has a very slight hint of sagey green, but not so much that you'd think it's a green color. It definitely looks more taupe-y than anything else, and we've gotten lots of "oohs and aaahs" over it, even from the subs. We have dark wood floors and white trim and baseboards (which is done in F&B "Pointing" as are our ceilings). In the office and master bedroom, we used F&B "light grey", which is also a wonderful color but definitely darker and may not feel light enough for the main areas in your home, depending on what your natural light is like (and obviously, depending on your taste for dark vs. light). Farrow & Ball has such wonderful big hand-painted swatch cards, and I would highly recommend purchasing them...they're a hefty $50, but definitely worth it and WAY better than the little brochure they'll send you for free, which has tiny little bits of color that give you just enough of a feel to want to see more! If you're interested, I can take photos of these rooms, but we're moving in on Friday (after an 8-month whole house renovation), and we're in the throes of last-minute chaos with electricians hanging fixtures, painters doing touch-ups and punch list stuff. Our contractor put rosin paper down on the floors so they won't get messed up, and so the tone of the red rosin paper may influence what you'll see as the color of the walls. Here's a tip for you - if you go to Google and press the tab for "Images" and type in the name of the paint that you're considering using, you'll probably see photos of rooms from magazines that used that color. It's very helpful. When we were considering using F&B's "Middleton Pink" for my teenage daughter's room, we were worried that it would be too little girl-ish, but when she saw the image of several rooms painted in Middleton Pink, she liked it and so we went with it (unfortunately, later on, after it was on the walls, I made the mistake of mentioning that it wasn't a very sophisticated color. DUH! WRONG thing to say to a teenager). Anyway, Google Images was very helpful! Good luck with your search. I went through the identical struggle on the neutral grey taupe about six months ago so I know how difficult it can be! Susan

Hey-just need to pass on that, for my purposes, Valspar Reserve Paint+Primer UNTINTED Ultra White Base AA in satin or semi-gloss is the purest, brightest white paint I've found ANYWHERE!!!!!! Repainting wood kitchen cabinets and trim and I needed an excessively pure white paint to brighten up the interior of our home, set in NC woods. Got mine at Lowe's. High quality, rich mixture, nice application....well worth evert penny!! Good luck with your project!