Ladies, Yes, FPE's sample-pots are described in the FPE "Specifiers Manual", as comprising 110 "The Designers Collection Colors"...and a group of 12 FPE "Twelve Classic Wall Colors". This totals 122 obviously...but in their manual, it states "...all 200 sample pots in handy organizers may be purchased for $1,000". I don't know how the colors are numbered, or what colors they correspond to...without the appropriate Fan-decks (of which there are many!!). Some decks have at least a $25 coupon to use towards their paint, which defrays some of the overall cost! Call-'em and have them send you their "Specifiers Manual". It describes most of their decks, and a TON of excellent paint info. Faron

if i saw that tree out in a field ... i would surmise... that at a young age.. it was mown once ... resulting in multiple new leaders which nobody bother to reduce to one ... that said.. i have no clue why you would want to recreate it ... unless its just a topic for us to talk about ... and i definitely wouldnt plant a maple within 50 feet of the house ... if for no other reason.. one fell on our house ... idiot tree ... lol ... [i told him for two decades to get rid of it ... dad passes ... and it falls on top of moms bedroom in the middle of a horrible windstorm ... while she was sleeping ... boy she was made of stuff i didnt end up with .. luckily she was in a financial position to pay to hire the roofers and plasters ... while the insurance company got around to the claim ... and since it was a metro detroit wide storm there were a lot of claims ... i got a hold of the ins guy and said.. lets make this easy ... if you approve of the bids ... just write the claim so it all washes out.. and it did ... and he was actually happy not only for the lack of argument ... but it came in cheaper than if he had to do it all ... both sides won.. and the job was done months in advance of of other claims.. go figure.. but i digress .... moral of the story.. dont plant trees with HUGE potential.. 10 feet from your house and then pass away ... leaving your widow problems ... love ya dad ...] ken ps: looks like you have the room for the 50 feet away part ....

It depends how much of a perfectionist you are. For most of us white oak is pretty much white oak (unlike species like cherry that can vary hugely from lot to lot, or tree to tree, but there may be differences in color, grain, and how it accepts stain based on where it was grown and perhaps how it was processed. So the safest course is to make samples from the actual flooring you are installing. Most importantly, to get an accurate sample, follow your finishing process _exactly_ on your samples-- sand through exactly the same grits, and apply each coat exactly as you would on the entire floor, completing the entire finishing schedule, preferably with all the same timing as you would on the whole floor. Anything else leads to unpleasant surprises. Even then I can't tell you how often the finished project hasn't matched the samples. If you can go with the natural color and avoid stains and dyes your headaches will be reduced about 100-fold. I generally try to choose the wood species that gives me the color I want rather than trying to force the wood to be some color it's not.

Can I ask what flooring you have and if it is the same in both rooms? Selecting neutrals is often more about choosing what works together and how they compare to other large elements in the room. Flooring and walls are the two largest areas in a room. I used a color that would be far more pink than most people want for their walls. But I have a large pink brick wall between my living room and foyer. My flooring in the foyer is a purple, red and green slate, so although the dark gray looks gray it is actually a violet gray with a considerable amount of purple. The flooring that I have selected for my living room is another taupe with an obvious purple/pink undertone. Most of the taupe (purple undertones) paint colors were going muddy or green in the space including Collingwood, Balboa Mist. I selected BM Frosted Toffee Here are some of the colors I tried next to either frosted toffee or collingwood. You may have to go more purple than to get the neutral you were looking for.