OK, so I plan on having the lights on 18 hours/day. My off time will be from 1pm to 7pm. I will keep the shade drawn on my little window so it will be quite dim/dark in there when the lights are off during daylight. I may gradually change the lighting time to be more in sync with nature as the seedlings mature, and the nights are not soooo cold in mid March. Hopefully by April they will be on a regular natural light regimine to star hardening off Thanks guys Brian

Thank you for the head's up on the screen issue, chloe. Our screens haven't been put in yet b/c we're still waiting on finishing up cleaning and detail work inside the house so I completely overlooked considering the space they will take away from being able to mount the shades. It's good to know, too, that Levolor is easy to work with, parma. The windows shown in the "less than ideal outcome" thread are similar to mine except that I have no wall between each of the windows, just window trim so the 3 windows look like one. If I can't fit the shades inside the 3 sections of trim I'm afraid that one big shade covering the entire window will look too heavy and probably they don't even make one that big. In that case I'll have to find another solution which is really disappointing since the day/night shades seemed like such a great solution. Thanks again for all your help.

Jeri, Posterboard is okay, but absolutely what Remodelfla said about the different walls, etc. Sometimes you have good reason not to paint the splotches. I couldn't really do it in my kitchen because there wasn't actually any finished drywall up when I was making paint choices. I used scraps of primed drywall. But then, I found the color I imagined for the walls as a premixed color in the store, and only had to mix the tint for the ceiling. My samples were just to confirm that it would work. The very best thing is to paint small swatches (6") on the wall first if you have a dozen colors to try. Make 15" swatches for the ones that pass muster, on all the walls in the room, against white (or gray for darks) primer. If you have two or three good choices and you're ready to make up your mind, paint out the losers, and make 3' square samples so that you can eliminate the influence of the white. You can skip right to the last step if you think you already have colors you'll like. The other steps are just to save a little labor. You can't always do this. Painting right on white drywall paper is next best. Painting on old color is confusing. If you have to use posterboard, it helps to use a couple layers of primer on it first. This helps get rid of the paper texture, and gives the paint a proper base so you're not seeing through it. You can also prime with your paint. Paint a few thin layers, and then a coating layer.

We have a similar (slightly greener) color in our bedroom, and it has a chameleon tendency too. (DH didn't even believe the bedroom and adjacent study were the same color when we first moved in---one room has two full walls of windows and the other just has two, so the effect is 100% different. But we confirmed it when we had to repaint some spots!) Lighting affected it a *lot* in our case----not only bulbs (interestingly, that improved when we switched to CFLs) but also placement of lights. (We had some electrical work done and added two small lamps when before there had been only the one overhead light---huge difference.) I would borrow lamps from some other rooms and play around with them to see what the effects are, and also try some other bulbs. (If you want to stick with CFLs, there are lots of options for "shades" of light that might solve the problem too. Our local ACE was okay with testing out bulbs and bringing them back for another room we were having trouble with---worth asking.) Good luck!