Painting was done before lights...and while all the windows were still covered with that protective plastic which made it impossible to really see how the sunlight coming thru the windows would affect colors. I know everybody says study your paint chips in the rooms where you'll be applying it so you can see how the natural light and the artificial lights in THAT room affect the color. Maybe that works when redecorating but in a new build, forget it. I painted foam boards and studied them in the rooms in my old house that had windows facing in the same (or similar) directions as the rooms in the new house would. It worked out well enough for daylight and incandescent lighting. In fact my paint colors looked even better under natural light conditions in the new house than I had anticipated b/c I have so many more windows. One problem I ran into tho was how the paint colors would look under CFL bulbs. We didn't have any CFLs in the old house and I assumed I would want the "daylight" CFLs because those would be truest to the daylight that I had studied my paint colors under. WRONG! Daylight CFLs have a very bluish tone and my major paint color (SW Frangipane) is a lovely warm soft peach tone. Under "daylight" CFLs it turns into a horrible greyish beige. UGH. I almost cried when I first saw it. But, the solution turned out to be as simple replacing all the "daylight" CFLs with "soft white" CFLs that have a much warmer tone. I still have about $500 worth of daylight CFLs stored away in a closet that I will never use. But at least I didn't have to repaint the entire house.

I looked at colors on paint chips and then wrote down choices of what I liked, without considering what furniture and accessories I have. Then I went over to the new house and put the paint chips on the wall and just picked what I liked. Once the paint was up, I was surprised at how much blue and beige I picked, without really even thinking about it. While each room is a different color, it all melds together really nicely, thank goodness, and I am very pleased with my color choices. I will worry about furniture later, once we move, but I think it will all be okay. If you like blue, BM Van Courtland Blue is the prettiest color! My builder has really fallen in love with it!! And a really nice blue/gray, is BM Nimbus Gray, which reads more blue than gray, but it's lovely!

We've had to pick colors prior to living in a home twice before because of buying homes at a distance from where we were living, and now just did it a third time. Twice the homes were brand new and the third was a major remodel. I found that painting it all a neutral is far better than going with all white IMHO unless you've got a lot of architectural interest or furnishings that fit a white palette. In fact the first time we did it, several neighbors (whose homes were also new) kept exclaiming that even empty our home just seemed so much more decorated than their all white ones. I think what they meant was that it seemed warmer-looking and of course, if you have white trim, it makes that show up. We went with a neutral beige (one was Parker wheat sheaf) and had the painters in before moving in, then I painted another color a few years later in one room when I finally got around to it. (It's probably obvious I'm not a painter.) I found that painters usually have a paint brand they prefer, but you can color match I suppose. I've selected something from the brand they prefer. This time I'm being brave for me and have selected two colors since I have a better idea how I'd like to decorate the rooms. I'm using Devine Color (new paint brand to me, but it's the builder's preference and has a good reputation I hear). I just hate to paint--hate the cutting in part and am lousy at it. Even in different lighting through the rooms, I haven't hated the neutral route. So good luck to you!

As to choosing a particular white, I chose one that went nicely with our granite counters. We started our reno in the kitchen, and it was the door trim close to the counters that I was concerned with at the time. I dropped a whole bunch of BM paint chips on the counter and had a good look. In our case, the Bavarian Cream was a clear winner next to our Kashmir Gold granite. The project later morphed into a whole house reno, and our white looked good throughout, so that's what we kept using. Our walls are mostly blues on the gray side and grays with blue undertones. One bedroom is Dove Wing, which is nearly white, because a huge leafy tree outside that window gives a green glow to the room. A year later, we're painting our bedroom doors and trim Bavarian Cream and we like it very much. The room door, plus the closet and bathroom doors are outside being painted by DH as I type. I expect I'll get roped into painting trim any moment now, buy hey, I've done more than my fair share of painting over the last year. When these doors are done, we'll be finished with the house! Well, inside.