SW Blonde is a wonderful warm gold that would warm things up and pull the gold from the sofa.

Such great recommendations. All very appreciated!

I have sofa-envy, floor-envy, and trim-envy...:)

Since it's very late here I'll be brief -first, you're trying your paint samples in a bit non-productive way..they're too close to each other, thus influencing each other and how they look to you, and not giving you true representation. Put two layers of each sample you try on a white paper..minimum A4 sized or so..leave the white border around-otherwise you once again will see the color not true to what it really is..tape the sample to the wall, move it around the room to see how it looks in different spots-they all change like crazy depending on the light and the angle..look at it in different times of a day, in daylight, and an artificial one. Whatever color you're going for-that's the way to try and see how it will behave on your walls in your room. Otherwise-hard or I'd even say-next to impossible to predict. Color X might work great for 1000 people but not for you..and vise versa. Every home is different.

I'll think some more tomorrow, less in terms of color names, more in terms of direction..not sure I'd come up with something brilliant:)

But just a thought..most people would chicken out including me lol..but if you love your white..which is pretty fabulous I must say...you can leave the walls white, but you can paint the trim..Not any easier for sure. but it's not like people don't do it sometimes with amazing results

If you leave it white( very pretty with your floors!)-yes, I'd paint then walls differently too..I agree this trim is meant to be seen and admired.

I'd use your sofa colors as an inspiration. They are bold yet muted a bit..try, one of these might turn out fab.

(here, was brief as I promised. lol)

Thank you very much, Aprilneverends. What you said makes a lot of sense. I had no idea that I would "strike out" with so many colors, hence the mish-mash that just keeps getting more chaotic with each new attempt. Given that this is taking much longer than I thought it would, I need to "reset" the room before trying another color.

We had also considered keeping the walls white and playing around with the trim as you suggested - a look that I really like as well. Do you think that would be too busy with everything else going on in there? If we went that route, I think I'd try to find a light, creamy beige for the trim, similar to what's been recommended for the walls.

Thank you!

Yes, thank you, annz3. That is what we're going for. I'll check out Emira white, too! Maybe in addition to a "color," I'll consider other whites as well.

I live in New England as well, and I have Pine Flooring. Look at BM Providence Olive, ask the BM store for a large chip. It is a very mysterious color. Its a green, ochre, gray, neutral. Other color suggestions are Monroe Bisque, or Barely Beige(might go yellow), which like the great suggestion of Elmira White should just highlight the difference between wall and trim. For a warm white that wont go yellow, I suggest SW Alabaster White, and BM Atrium White, but these are not sufficient contrast for me with Simply White trim YMMV.

My most important advice however is that you are really looking at the paint color TOO intently, as if it is the only element. Your room is gorgeous. I would be tempted to leave it Simply White(caveat I love white rooms). I imagine your room with natural blinds in the windows, flanked by striped or checked panels. Then I add a cozy rug, maybe a braided rug, maybe an old oriental. On the couch, I place a knitted throw and some velvet pillows. Some lamps, or sconces for ambient lighting and your space is very comforting.

Here's my den, it's just white. It doesnt need wall color. The windows face north/west. It is dark all day and blinding when the setting sun is in just the right spot for 45 minutes each day. Adding texture and fabric is what converts the room.

I agree that your room doesn't need color, maybe just something to contrast with the trim. When you add back rugs, curtains, art, accessories and pillows your room will have plenty of color.

Color suggestions are helpful but it really depends on your room and your light. I used accessible beige in my bedroom and it doesn't have a hint of green. I suggested kilm beige for my husband's office and it looked good but had too much of a peach/orange look for my taste.

Localeater and d_gw, you are so right. We do need real window treatments and other accessories (rug, pillows, etc.) that will work to warm up the room, and I love the suggestions (and appreciate the compliments!) I've come to really like the Simply White in the house. It doesn't feel cold to me at all, but instead bright, fresh and clean, and it doesn't intrude into the room or my consciousness like every single other color that I've tried so far does. But you're right - I'm hyper-focused on the color, and what works in one house or room might not work for us. Thank you for the additional BM recommendations; I'll check them out. I love your den, Localeater. Thank you so much for sharing it with me. It's a beautiful, welcoming, very pleasing to the eye. It's helpful to see. DH would love "something other than white" that makes the woodwork "pop", so that might be why I'm hyper-focused on the paint color, and by doing that, I'm losing sight of the "bigger picture."

THANK you for your suggestions, candor, and for being so nice about it! :)

About busy..I think it won't if you go for a light color for the trim..something dark and glossy might look busy, yes, and bigger homes can handle that better. But. One person's "busy" is another's person paradise...say maybe many people would consider your beautiful sofa busy and I'm here all in love. The other sofa you've posted-from the inspiration pics-I know it too..a dream!

When it's about hard finishes, stones, tiles-then yes, since these are so ..semi-permanent, busy/non busy gets to be much much more important..with paint and furnishings you're much more free..

how about this scenario:

-leave it white for now since you love it anyway and it is beautiful.

-look for soft furnishings that make your heart sing. take your time if needed

-much easier then to look for the paint. because the paint is infinite choice and can be literally anything

while it is much much harder to find the rug, the drapes, the whole etcetera that will go with a certain paint

even though i must say your white gives you A LOT of choice. you can pick everything-and happily decide you stay with it

you can then decide whether to tread very softly with a trim-or to be a bit bolder. maybe you'll see your room takes the more serene direction of your second inspirational picture, maybe you'll see you love more the exuberant happiness of the first one. maybe you'll decide to make one room more serene, another-more playful, regardless the trim

the bones are great, and I'd be very excited to learn what you've decided to go with

I love white wall, so would leave it.

Also really like SW Accessible Beige (not green in my rooms) and really, really Agreeable Gray.

Another intriguing color is BM Coastal Fog. It's green, gray, beige. It could work really well in your room.

Thank you so much for the additional help and suggestions, Aprilneverends and nosoccermom. I really appreciate it. I do love the white, but if DH is tired of the white, I can understand why and can work with that, and might wind up loving the change even more, so we'll see!

Good morning! I wanted to update you on our progress, and to thank you all for your advice and help, because due to your suggestions and gentle steering, we're close to forming a plan that makes sense!

After posting, I thought a lot about the advice to hold off on painting, and to instead continue to put the room together. I see now that my desire to paint in order to pull the room together was putting the cart before the horse. That's also why I was having so much trouble finding a color - I had no plan and was hoping to get direction from the wall color, which I now understand ain't the best way to go about this :)

Soooooo, we've rearranged the rooms so that both floral sofas are in the living room with the stove, and the dining room table and chairs have been moved back into the dining room. I was amazed to see how well everything worked together. I've been decluttering a lot lately, and it was pleasantly surprising to find that there is some consistency to what I've chosen to hold on to, and it all translates to an overall casual rustic look and feel, with hints of modern accents, and I also remember that I absolutely love warm, rusty orange. :)

So, I went to the paint store and grabbed color cards for the colors that are in the floors, sofa, dining table and chairs, and saw a pattern begin to emerge. I took those home and tried each one around the rooms and narrowed the pile further to what we liked best and what seemed to work best in the rooms. What was left was a pile of burnt orange, warm gold, deep blue, creamy white, and medium gray cards.

So I added some rust-orange colored pillows and throws to the sofas, and now I'm seeing (or more accurately, "feeling") that some form of a yellowish/mustardy/gold color on the walls in the living room might be a great way to go ( as previously mentioned by several of you - thank you!, and my husband will see that it will be wonderful in there :). I'm also envisioning a medium-brown leather ottoman (we're going to remain rugless for now because we're hoping to get a puppy in the spring), and swapping the plastic blinds for either wood blinds or interior shutters (so no curtains). It seems that some form of burt orangey brown would be great in the connected dining room, which has a farmhouse table, parsons chairs, and a small cottagey/creamy sideboard/server. These paint colors will really reflect our overall personality and lifestyle and will also be "right" for us, for the rooms, and for the overall look/feel/character/age of the house, so I am very happy about that. The south-facing kitchen that opens up to the dining room will take its cues from these colors, as will the connecting hallway and mudroom/entry - and we'll figure out the upstairs hall and bedrooms after we complete phase 1 . :)

Thank you all so much for gently nudging us toward a plan! I NEVER would have considered this color palette, because I thought that I wanted white or gray, no matter what. I'll keep you posted, and let you know how it turns out. :) Thank you all very much again!!!

Please do:) It was fascinating to learn how things are emerging and coming together in your home and why. Thank you so much for sharing, and will be waiting to read some more

Thanks for sharing your process! I look forward to future updates, please share lots of pictures. : )

So happy for you and looking forward to updates in the future!

Thanks!!! :)

Hello again. :) We've been working hard based on everyone's great suggestions (can't thank you enough!), so we're moving forward and are looking at wall colors - of which we've considered around a million so far, I think. ;) We've managed to finally narrow it down to six palettes, all of which are gray or griege - which was a big surprise, but warm gold just didn't feel right in the room. So we have a few pics of some SW paint palettes on our fabric in the light of the living room, next to an accent pillow, and with a glimpse of the floor. What I'd love to please know is if there are any palettes that are blatantly "off", or if any stands out from the other in a good way. We're hoping to start with a color or colors from one of these groupings. Thanks in advance for your help!

For a warm gold my former living room was Desert Tan BM. Something on that strip might work for you as I had a brown leather sofa, hardwood floors and lots of rusty orange and olive/taupe colors in that house.

I'm leaning toward the mid to darker gray for a cozy feel.

Thank you so much, mystique pearson! I'll check it out. I'm finding it tough to find a gold that doesn't turn greenish or dingy in here due to the lighting - trees block the east- facing windows and the other window faces north.

And thank you, too, k9rlene, for your help! We might be leaning in that direction....

I think gray can be amazing with your floors and couch. I'm also leaning for a mid, a bit warmer gray for cozier feel. Otherwise, it's really hard to point on one or two of the samples(even though I do have favorites)-they're very small, they might be nothing what I see through my monitor, and there's a big chance they will look totally different when on your walls-as most color chips prove to be, time after time. Choose your favorites(say three or four..as a beginning point lol), and sample them-don't forget to put two layers of paint to get truthful representation of color, say, on a A4 size white paper, make sure you see them against pure white background, and move them around the room/s as to see them on different walls and in different lights. Be prepared to love one of them madly right away-or move on to other samples. Gray is a..not easy)). Well, as any paint color out there.

Good luck, and waiting to hear about the progress, if/when you'll feel like it.

Will do! Thanks again, Aprilneverends!

And many thanks to everyone who took the time to respond. All of the input is very helpful, reassuring, and encouraging.

Finding a paint color can be a challenge for some rooms. I found most beiges even described as neutral to have a definite tone and not look so neutral. Elmira White looked great on the board I painted but looked muddy and drab in the room. If you go in the creamy direction, maybe Maritime White. Fossil looks like a gray green.

Thank you, maries1120. This is the darkest room in the house, it faces north, and it is small, so in this light, strange things happen. :)

Absolutely love the darker gray shown in the center of the very last photo for this room. I think the last set of chips show the best, yet the darkest one appeals to me with similar tones of that lovely fabric. Can’t wait to see what you do!!!

Thank you so much, 4Heidesign! So, you say the last photo. Interesting! :) Those are the "accessible beige" colors in that image; the darkest pictured is "virtual taupe." The medium tones are "balanced beige" and "tony taupe." Very interesting... :)

Momshouse - I totally understand what you are going through. I have a room like this and have about 50 sample cans to prove it. I have a painter coming Wednesday to paint the room so I need to decide soon between my 2 finalists. I had recommendations on many great colors but there is some element in this room that impacted the color in any light. I'm down to Sonnet or a color I made of Sonnet mixed with Muslin. Muslin on its own had very strong peachy undertones in this room. Once you get a better idea of what you'd like, buy sample cans and foam or poster board to paint on. Than you'll have a bigger sample that you can move around and see in different light too.

My favorite creamy color is by Behr (Home Depot) - Hazelnut Cream. Benjamin Moore could mix it for you. I have it in our kitchen (SE) and a room with NW lighting. It is a very soft creamy color with no glaring undertone. This didn't work in my mystery room but the issue is not the color. Some other elements are giving a green cast to the walls but that happened with color number 2 as well so I'm obsessed with getting it right with this 3rd color choice/paint job.

Yes, maries1120, I completely understand your determination/obsession. I'm also determined to solve this puzzle! :) Thank you for your help!

The only .02 that I can add is that I obsessed over finding the right color for a cool, low light room in my house for a year and a half. I finally went with a mid range color (not too light, not too dark) and I was very pleased with the way it looked. I actually had to tint the color I chose just a tad darker with a black color tinting paint to get the perfect shade. The mid tones don't make the room feel closed in, but they still keep their color impact even under lighting that could wash out a paler color. Either go totally pale because that's what you want, or mid range. A darker color is only good if you absolutely love the statement it makes and are going to be happy living with that statement for a long while, or you don't mind painting a lot, lol! I change my mind about decorating and move things around from room to room in my house too much, so I tend to go for neutral light wall colors, even though I love color.

Thanks, I pinkmountain. I can really relate to your experience. Like you, I also like to change things up and move things around every so often, but I'm hoping that this current setup/configuration will last a while. Plus, half of the time I think I want a darker (I.e., mid-range) color in here, with different colors in the rest of the house flowing from that one, and then the other half of the time I want to just go with something clean and bright like the white we started with, throughout the entire house. My fear is that, whichever way I go, I'm gong to wish that I went the other way (must be a real picnic to live with me, huh? ;). I think that that's what's holding me back. I've found a ton of great colors that will look great in here - I just need to pick one. :)

I know what you mean about golds. I searched forever before realizing the chips for yellows are WAY OFF. The paint is never similar to the strips. I didn't imagine something called TAN would be the best yellows, but BM has a couple of very nice tans that read as medium or pale gold on the walls without any greenish cast.

You had a taupe inspiration in one of your photos so that could be the way to go.

Thank you, mystique Pearson. We're headed now toward either a gray or a taupe/griege in the living room, and in the dining room, either a shade of the gray that we use in the LR, or a greenish/bluish gray such as sw oyster bay or something along those lines.

Accessible beige went gray in the living room, not in a terrible way, but it seemed neither here nor there, and seemed to wash out. Repose gray looks much more substantial (if that makes any sense), crisper, cleaner, and quite nice at some points during the day (thank you again to Anglophilia for suggesting it!), but it leans ever-so-slightly blue (or maybe purple?) in the natural light in the LR, and I don't know if I want that (it might be just what the doctor ordered), plus, I don't know if the blue that I'm seeing (or feeling) will be magnified if the entire room were repose gray or one of the darker shades on the "strip" such as mindful gray or Dorian gray. (Although there is blue in the sofa fabric, the blue next to the gray in the pattern often "reads" bluish/greenish/grayish in the room).

I guess I'll sample mindful gray and Dorian gray and see what happens.Another color that we think might work with everything that is going in in here is intellectual grany, so we're going to sample that as well, and then see where we are.

Thank you ALL for taking the time to help! We're getting closer... :)

Take a look at BM November Rain OC-50. It is listed as an off white but on the card it looks like a pale grayish green (or greenish gray). If your room is like my challenging room, everything looks darker in the room than you expect.

Thank you, maries1120. I will look at November Rain and will look at other grayed-out greens and blues, which I like as well and might also work in here. And yes, colors do appear much darker in here!

Here here is a link- look at the similar colors too if this looks like what might work.

https://www.benjaminmoore.com/en-us/color-overview/find-your-color/color/OC-50/november-rain?color=OC-50

I have shared this before. But the light reflecting off the floor really changes the color on the wall. Both sides of this photo are the same paint out of the same can. Depending on the time of day they can get to almost the same shade

Thanks for the link, maries1120.

And wow, Kippy! That's incredible! Thank you for sharing! Out of curiosity, what color is that? I also have to reckon with light bouncing off the orange- and yellowish floors in here. I haven't given up yet! :)

wow

(at some times, several rooms of our new place look almost the same..I myself hardly believe I went with nine or so paints there..)) not including additional playing with formulas etc

at some other times though i could swear two walls of the same room are two different colors

i think the point is still to like them most of the time))

I've been playing with the SW color visualizer tool and came up with a ton of different schemes, but this one is pointing me toward an overall house palette that I really like. It's very "beigey", it isn't at all trendy, but it's very warm, looks a lot like the clothes in my closet - jeans and earthy tops :) - and just might work. If I want to spice it up, I think I can add or swap a gray such as amazing gray or intellectual gray into the mix to bring it into the 21st century. (There's a good amount of gray in the fabric already.) I know that the colors that the app generates aren't exact, but it's a good road map. Waddyathink? :)

Don't preoccupy yourself with 21 st century..doesn't promise to be that impressive just yet..:) Do what you love, and what fits your home and you..fits as nicely as favorite jeans and sweater. Especially as everyday I'm getting these "This color is in! this color is out!" prognosis in my e mail..gosh, takes them even less than to decide what's a white death-salt or sugar..

It's a very pretty palette. Will look different on the walls, but you already know that..:)

SW balanced beige is spectacular. You can do a whole house in it and never tire of it. Balanced beige

Ha, LOL, thank you, Aprilnevends. Fingers crossed that they work on the wall... And thank you, yayagal for the suggestion.

The paint color color is Behr Morning Zen. Kind of a silvery Sage tone. Not as blue as the left side of the photo or tan like the right. This is a smal 100+ year old "moms house" too. I ended up using this color in a couple of rooms, some at 50% or 25% like the dark hallway

Thanks, Kippy. So interesting!

Pretty colors. I think a warmer grayer green might work better for you with the room and the floor. You will need to experiment a little to see how the color looks in your room. With my challenging room, anything that looked grayer ended up looking very blah or muddy. My room is being painted tomorrow. I hope this is it and it turns out great. I never imagined picking a paint color could be so difficult. For some rooms it really is a challenge.

Ooh, good luck, maries1120!!!