I've read that beiges will have an undertone of either pink/peach or green. Macadamia probably tends more toward green, but not as much as some beiges. In the SW fan deck, for the most part the shades on strip numbers lower than the Whole Wheat one tend toward pink/peach (with the Nomadic Desert being the least of those-ND looks like caramel to me). Those strip numbers higher than and including Whole Wheat tend to have the green undertones. Peachy beiges are tricky. I used Sand Dollar in my foyer which got very little natural light and it looked like a nice, neutral beige. I decided to use it in my kitchen which has large west facing windows, and it looked like refried beans - no lie. One thought with a basement space is to bring the "outdoors" in by using a creamy yellow (sun), blue (sky) or green (foliage). But the shades of each have to be right. Muted shades sometimes just look gray in a darker space. Do you have color corrected light bulbs? That will make a difference as well. Use them now while you are testing out paint samples.

"I have considered having the trim work re stained or painted as wells as the doors. It would be a tedious job....The color of the wood is not something I would have picked out." You asked about paint colors, not your woodwork, but I have to tell you: I am not loving the color of the wood either. Maybe it's my monitor, but it's reading too orangy-brown. And too dark. In that case, not only does it not work with your fireplace (it seems to overwhelm the stone), but I'm not picturing it with your furniture either. Since you say the furniture stays....If I were you, I'd get some pieces of wood trim and try out various paint colors. Color matching is not my forte, but perhaps a soft white with hints of that pale stone color in it? Nothing too crisp. At any rate, after you've decided for sure one way or the other re: redoing the woodwork, you can revisit the wall color issue. Although I will say, when ufgator mentioned EK colors, her Sage immediately came to mind. We have a sample sheet of it, and here at least, it's a green that, in many lights and at certain angles, reads as brown -- but not as a definitive "oh-that's-a-brown brown." More like: "that-green-looks-sort-of-brown brown." Subtle and quite interesting. We might conceivably use it in our kitchen. If you don't want to use EK paints, you can try Benjamin Moore or whatever brand you prefer and seek out similar shades. Anyway, I think you need some green tones. (speaking of huge painting jobs, yes, redoing the woodwork would probably be too tedious for words, but once you've finished it, it will be done -- and in the color you want. You will forget the pain of it and every day be able to look at something you love. Having done Victorian molding around windows and around doors that also had transoms, let me try to reassure you: it takes FOREVER, but you forget the pain of it almost the minute you've cleaned your paint brushes and can admire your beautiful woodwork! I have never regretted spending the time to get a paint job the way I wanted it.)

Paint samples are on the brick, and it's down to Revere Pewter and Balboa Mist. I much preferred the more gray beige over the more brown tones. (romy718, Revere Pewter is lovely in your room!) Practigal, the fireplace is purely decorative. It originally held a gas heater, so it's not deep enough to burn wood anyway; we capped the chimney when the brick mortar started to fall apart, and we capped the gas line to that part of the house when they detected a tiny leak, so we couldn't use it even if we wanted to. It is kind of weird to pick a paint without the context of other decor. I do have a rug that's going in the room, so I'm referring to it. The furniture that's going in that room now is the leftover reject material from the rest of the house. I want to put in some cozy Craftsman style seating--maybe a Morris chair and a rocker--but that will have to wait until the bank account recovers. So I'm just going to pick the best color I can for now. I can always repaint it later. The corbels arrived (I don't know if ArchitecturalDepot.com is always that fast, but they got it to me overnight when I paid for three-day shipping) and I'm working on finding stain to match the mantel. I'll get back this next week--we spent today moving stuff out of storage, and I've got boxes to put away. But it's so cool to see the progress. Oh, and my husband's reaction was a sort of bemused resignation. This isn't the first time I've jumped head-first into a project without consulting him. Sometimes this goes very well; other times it's a disaster. He asked me today if it was too soon to tease me about the bookcases (which I purchased from Ikea and assembled before we realized I had measured wrong and they wouldn't fit in the space--and that therefore required some pretty major engineering to make work). (I told him yes, it was too soon. Way too soon.) The fireplace looks to be not only a success but also one that doesn't require any effort on his part, and as he's teaching an accelerated summer chemistry course and has almost no spare time, that's a win!

This is strange but I just had my husband paint our master and guest bedroom. I wanted the desert nomad in the master and kilim in the guest but I wasn't home and he swaped them. i like the desert nomad better. The kilm is lighter than I wanted. The living area of our house is Valspar "smoked oyster" which is darker more brown gray. I like a grayer look myself.