Trying to make sense of BM grays and greens---help!

13 years ago

We're in the midst of renovating our kitchen and are trying to pick cabinet and wall colors---after spending half of yesterday going through swatches, I'm feeling a little in over my head and wondered if anyone had successfully paired some greens and grays and had suggestions.

The basics:

- Bungalow style kitchen with painted Shaker-style cabinetry--original casework in house is white, but we want a non-white color for the kitchen cabinets.

- We'd like a bright/cheerful color on the walls---drawn to greens but open to other ideas. Trying to avoid a muted Pottery Barn-ish look---love it but have it in other rooms already so the goal is for the kitchen to feel fresh/"modern vintage."

- The idea is to pick a more neutral color (gray, maybe?) for the kitchen cabinets so that the color scheme of the room could be changed fairly easily. Appliances are white and counter will be black. Floor is gray, but can be either light or dark depending on what makes sense (Marmoleum tile).

- We're working with the Benjamin Moore colors since that's what our cabinetmaker uses. Right now the trim and casework throughout the house is BM Acadia White, so the idea is to use that for the kitchen trim too, but we're open to switching to Glacier White (colder) if it makes the other colors work better. We have some cherry red accents (art, mixer) that I'd love to use in the color scheme too.

Greens we like: Stem Green, Potpourri Green, Pear Green, Key Lime---basically, brighter shades that are definitively "color" but steering clear of chartreuse and olive tones.

Grays we like: Edgecomb Gray, Revere Peter, Gray Owl, Horizon Gray, Smoke Embers, Sweet Spring, Sleigh Bells---should be gray enough to contrast with the Acadia White trim

But we can't find any of these that seem like they'd work well together! The really light grays seem to wash out/read white with the brighter greens, and the medium grays wash out the greens.

We haven't looked at everything since there are a bunch of greens they don't even make swatches of...but does anyone have any thoughts on either a specific green-gray combo that might work, or on a general approach to finding one (e.g., should we be looking at the gray greens, the pure grays, the blue grays...?) Should we abandon the green all together and look elsewhere for a wall color that will work?

Thanks for any thoughts!!

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Comments (11)

juliekcmo
13 years ago
Did you know that benjamin moore has a great website with a feature that lets you paste their colors into sample rooms and see how they look together?

You can also upload a photo of your actual room, and then paint it with their colors to see how they look with your furniture, etc.

My painter recommends sticking to the historical colors as he feels that they always look good. If you are looking at a way to cut through the madness this may help you.
artemis78
Original Author
13 years ago
Thanks---yep, we've played with their site, which is definitely very cool. Found unfortunately that it's not a great representation of the actual colors with the monitor oddities, even after adjusting the calibration, though. Ah, well. I got stuck because I like the gray-green combos fine on screen, but when we started pulling the chips they didn't look at all the same...argh!

The guy at our local BM dealer said the same about the historical colors, interestingly---he thinks they're richer. We like a couple of the HC grays (Edgecomb + Stonington) but haven't had much luck with greens there---they seem more muted. (So far the front runners there are Pear Green, Wales Green, and maybe Potpourri Green from the Color Preview line.)
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My experience in selling our house in Oct 2009 was atypical for our area ( nothing was selling in out area or neighborhood, but I think will relate to your situation. The house was built in 1990. I have not read all of the responses but here goes. We painted the entire house to a neutral walls and white trim because it needed it. We did not paint the brick FP. We removed the wall paper in the FR but left the wainscot and folk wallpaper in the Kitchen and Bfst nook. Realtor had a cow and said house would never sell, but this still looked great. Maybe not HGTV but I was tried of taking wallpaper down... We replaced all of the carpet- bedrooms, finished lower level and FR- with a neutral flat more commercial berber from HD. Because it needed it and looked worn. This was cheap with free install. We had already moved out of the house and the upstairs had no furniture but all the windows all had white wide slat wood blinds. The living room had my Persian area rug and the piano. The dining room had a garage sale round dining table with a floor length canvas drop cloth for the table cloth and four black dining chairs. Oh and an ivy plant in the center. The family room had my old sofa with a white slipcover and my old leather ottoman with a copper tray on it. Oh yeah and two throw pillows. I changed out the kitchen knobs. I spray painted the light fixtures bronze, these were cheap shiny brass. Our house was spotless. Inside and outside and empty except for the mentioned items. The realtor listed it on a Friday night and it was sold by 7pm Sat night to the first people who looked at it Sat am. For asking price. Within 5% of two comps. We became friends with the buyers as we built a house on our adjoining property and they said they chose our house because it was newly painted and had new carpet so they didn't have to do that. They loved the wallpaper in the kitchen but immediately changed out the kitchen knobs. They wanted to buy my "dining set"... This house was under $500.000 and we spent under $3,000 to do the carpet and I did the painting. I will say that if the house was a more expensive and more upscale neighborhood, I would still have emptied and minimally staged. Nobody is buying your décor and even if you have to pack up and put everything into storage and live like Spartans I would do that at least. When we started cleaning it became apparent that the paint and carpet needed to be done. Once a house is emptied unless its newly painted even if clean it still can look grungy IMO. Sometimes people give a painting cash allowance at closing - that might suffice for some buyers. Most of the staging/updating I believe if for a certain price point. You know to help buyers choose between several closely comparable properties. If your home is appealing to a certain demographic because of a higher price then wouldn't those buyers want to pick their own flooring, paint colors fixtures etc?
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redbazel
13 years ago
I usually use Benjamin Moore colors even if they get mixed in something else, but recently painted my living room in Martha Stewart Mourning Dove, which I had mixed in Ben Moore paint. It's a nice gray-green or green-gray, whichever you prefer, and it creates a nice neutral ground for my richer colors on fabrics and lamps, etc. I first saw it on the cabinets in the Martha Stewart set kitchen, (see link!) and I see on Remodelista's blog, that the wall color is a soft gray shade called Evening Moth, also MS.
When I had my paint chips out, I thought that Bedford Gray (MS) looked good with the Mourning Dove too. You can get the chips at Home Depot.

Red

Here is a link that might be useful: Remodelista Blog
willowdecor
13 years ago
I painted my pantry BM Fieldstone (#1559 - I think)- Itis a gray green - but a neutral gray that goes well with yellow based and blue based colors. Here is the link so you can see it. Good Luck!

Here is a link that might be useful: Gray Cabinets
beekeeperswife
13 years ago
I cannot give any gray advice. I'm simply not allowed. I have not 24, but 30 cans of gray sample paint. Seriously. I have come to a decision of what I'm doing. (Baltic Gray) I was looking for a nice gray that didn't have any green undertones, and I decided against "gravender" (gray + lavender). Anyway, just wanted to let you know that you can get samples of the BM paints mixed at Lowes for under $3 a pot. It's cheaper than the BM sample cans. They are all in "satin", but you can still get a good idea.

Best of luck.
mom270
13 years ago
I bought Elizabeth Mayhew's book "Flip for Decorating" and two of the colors you're considering are among her 5 "No-fail paint colors." There is a picture of kitchen cabinets painted Potpourri Green. They do look nice. She also recommends Gray Owl - although not in combination wht the PG. One nice gray I sampled this summer accidentally was BM Gray Mist. I asked the paint store for Gray Wisp (the same color as Restoration Hardware Silver Sage - definitely muted and not bright) and they gave me Gray Mist. It's pretty so you might want to try that one. Good luck.
artemis78
Original Author
13 years ago
Thanks all! Sample sheets of many of these headed my way soon, a couple of them sight unseen (other than the computer!) :) From what I can tell, it seems we're looking for either a true gray or a "greige." I'll report back on what we decide. (Oh, and @beekeeperswife, thanks for the Lowe's tip too!)
azwildcats70
13 years ago
We painted our hearth room BM Berkshire Beige which is a gray green sort of khaki color. We painted our cabinets BM White Dove (gray white) and the trim BM Decorator's white.
User
13 years ago
I'm going through paint color choices now for my whole downstairs so I know how you feel.

The Aura Affinity deck from Benjamin Moore is designed so that all the colors in the deck go with each other so you can't mess up.

I am using several colors from that deck plus I picked one from the Classic deck too. It makes it a little easier to choose.

Hope this helps.
demeron
13 years ago
Azwildcats, that color is so pretty against the trim. Really nice.
azwildcats70
13 years ago
Thanks demeron!

As you can see, Berkshire Beige looks like different colors in different light.

Trying to make sense of BM grays and greens---help!

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Trying to make sense of BM grays and greens---help!

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