I'd pull a chip/sample of Shaker Beige from BenM for your great room. Finding the quality of "lighter" in a range of beiges is not difficult, however, finding the quality "cleaner" could be a challenge.

Due to the basic nature of how beiges are created, usually a complex and balanced mix of colorants, "cleaner" isn't how a color of beige will end up. Beiges are often "muddied" up a bit.

A cleaner beige is interesting tho -- I'll think about it and take a look to see what options might fit that description...

We, too, live in a retirement community and wanted something light and bright. Unfortunately, our great room faces north and we lack a lot of light although we have several large windows.

We painted out entire downstairs SW Wheeling Neutral. It is a goldish tan that changes with the time of day and the seasons, it seems. We highlighted one wall in the dining room with Manchester Gray, a nice green/gray.

Our upstairs is Clarksville Gray. Really do like that color, if I had it to do over, I'd put it downstairs and the other upstairs.

Good luck!

You asked about green. I have BM Fernwood Green in my bedroom and love it. I considered changing it to Farrow and Ball Verte de Terre or BM Baby Turtle (very popular on this site) but decided that I haven't tired of it enough in 7 years. I have also had an old Martha Stewart color available at SW called Fen, which is lovely also. Other great choices are Georgian Green and Rosemary sprig by BM. Camouflauge by BM is a light green, which many people recommend. And if you want a deeper green Olive Branch, Wethersfield Moss and Dry Sage are great choices.. There's a post now about a fresher green for kitchen and there's a few photos. SW Sassy Green, Hearts of palm, SW Koi Pond 7727 look pretty. Another very popular green is SW Svelte Sage. Browner Greens are Providence Olive by BM and Hancock Grey. Greyer greens are Hampshire Gray and October Mist(1495 , very soothing color, love it) by BM

I have Baby Turtle in a guest room. I reduced it to 75% for the walls due to the limited light and 25% for the ceiling. I would have gone full strength if we had more light.

We used BM Shellbourne (sp?) Buff in varying degrees (75%, 50% and 25%) throughtout the rest of the house and, 18 mos later, wouldn't change it. Not beige, but more of a muted gold

We have BM Barley (199) in our entryway... It's a soft, pale yellow... we're very happy with it.. not too yellow!

I have been using BM205 for the past three paint jobs for my living room. We get a lot of light. This color will look beige on the chip, but it is a nice soft yellow on the walls.

Sherwin williams Ivoire is a lovely light neutral. It reads creamy yellow to me.

Thanks everyone for your suggestions. We hope we get this right the first time as we are hiring a painter. We have two more days to pick out colors. We decided to remove the popcorn texture from the ceilings and will have a smooth finish. I'm really excited about having smooth ceilings.

Will be at the BM store in the morning and will take all your suggestions with me. Today we got two bottles of paint samples from Home Depot. I can tell right off one of them looks too creamy.

Thanks for the green color suggestions too!

We have a 'beigey' color in 2 rooms in our house that I like. It's Ramie (SW 6156). I would say it perhaps leans slightly yellow. Both rooms have a lot of natural light, so it looks good in the daytime, but it also looks good at night. A green I have in my house (though not in a bedroom) that I like lot is Connected Gray (SW 6165). It's right below Svelte Sage on the same strip. Good luck!

SW Whole Wheat is what we went with and I think it fills all your requirements listed above!! We painted our very open concept home (kitchen, dining, and living room all basically one room) before we had furniture or drapes or any other element. Just had wood floors and white trim. Love it!!