I felt the same - overwhelmed! The design expert at my local store pulled out the Chantilly Lace and said its her "go to" color for ceilings and trim. I took it home and it want with everything else I had selected - no noticeable undertones. I'm using SW Accessible beige for my walls, and my kitchen will be Ikea Bodbyn gray with white counters.

Thanks so much! So you don't see it as being too stark? I look at the white dove we have in our current house and think how truly white it looks, but then I see it next to my white curtains and it looks dingy. I'm def leaning towards chantilly, please update once you have the painting done and let me know how you like it!

I painted my cabinets Chantilly Lace and it is pretty stark. I picked it because I didn't want the cabinets to look dingy next to my already very white walls. If you're looking for something a little softer but still neutral, you might consider Oxford White or Snowfall White.

I painted my room with BM Classic gray (very very pale gray with beige undertone) and used BM White (01) for trim. Came out gorgeous. The trim used to be off white and it looked dingy. Now it looks crisp and has a nice contrast to the pale gray.

I think it really depends on your new house lighting. White was the hardest paint choice for me. I considered decorator's white, cloudwhite, white dove, chantilly lace and simply white. I bought samples and painted a small area on walls and ceilings throughout my house and looked at them at different time of the day. I ended up with simply white and I cannot be happier! My house is painted with different shades of gray/beige, balboa mist, classic gray, shoreline, and silver satin. Simply white looks perfect with my house's lighting, not too stark but not too warm either. It's best to buy samples and try it in your new home before you commit!

I recently went through this myself and tried a lot of different whites, before settling on one. My advice is to buy samples and try them directly on the places where you intend to paint.

Here's my opinion on those colors:

A majority swear by White Dove for trim, but I tried it and it looked dark and dirty on my ceiling and not crisp enough on my trim. Before I tried it in my living spaces, I painted my whole my bathroom ceiling in White Dove and I didn't like it, but not enough to repaint the ceiling just yet. IMO, White Dove looks good as a Cabinet paint, not as a trim/ceiling color.

Other colors I've tried, Decorator's White, which looked blue on my ceiling, very bright/stark on my trim. Oxford white, neutral beige white and very crisp. I like this one a lot. Steam (AF-15) is just tad darker than Oxford White, still neutral and crisp for trim. Swiss Coffee is what I painted my cabinets first and it's creamy, not stark. A decorator suggested that I paint my trim Swiss Coffee, since my cabinets are that color, but I didn't want creamy trim and crown molding so I went with Steam, which is a soft white, but still crisper than White Dove.

Other popular colors for trim Chantilly lace (bright white), Atrium White (Pink Cast), Simply White (very white-yellow).

Before I can give you a suggestion on which white is right, I think we need to know what the wall color will be and possibly the furniture/flooring tone, and other wood work. And as others pointed out, color choices even depend on natural and artificial lighting. Are the rooms N, S, E, or West Facing? South gets a lot light, North not so much. South you can get away with darker and cooler paint.

Got busy with the holidays and forgot to check on this post!

So let me try and answer some of these questions. I'm pretty set on the wall colors mentioned in the original post, with gray owl being the main living and common areas. We have an open concept plan, but the kitchen/dining and living are separated by a brick archway. The archway, and all the trim, doors, fireplace and master bath cabinets will all be the same white, and that's the one I'm struggling with. I selected oil rubbed bronze hardware for all of my doors to help warm up the space, so I def have to consider that when choosing a white. The kitchen itself will probably have either fieldstone or gray owl cabinets and maybe white wisp walls, with marble or quartzite countertops. The floors throughout this entire space will be hardwood, the exact color will strictly depend on what's available when it comes time to install, but they will def be a midrange color with hopefully some gray undertones and no orange. Simple white subway tile for the kitchen backsplash, the main living area is in the back of the house, which faces west, and the kitchen also has a small north facing window.

I love Swiss Coffee, always have, but it's too creamy for the colors I've chosen. I also recently started looking at Oxford White, so that's one I'll have to get a sample of. I'm considering Cloud White too. I'm def starting to feel like Chantilly Lace is just too stark. We have White Dove now, with almost all Revere Pewter walls, and it looks great, just a nice rich white, no yellow or blue undertones. I just don't think it's 'white' enough for the lighter colors I've chosen.

When you are asking about lighting, I'm not sure what you need to know. The kitchen will have two open pendant lights, the dining is some sort of chandelier, same in the living. Nothing will have shades b/c I find that they tend to cast a very yellow light in a room. Actually every room will be some sort of hanging fixture, we have high ceilings and aren't doing ceiling fans. There will also be recessed lighting throughout.

Hope I got everything in there!

I used a lot of the same colors as you and used Snowfall as my white trim color.

What made you pick snowfall over simply white? I worry that simply white will cast yellow or green, i know I've read that, but maybe it was only on the walls and not trim.

I do like snowfall white, I've been looking at it a lot. I've eliminated Chantilly Lace, White Dove, Cloud White. And Probably Oxford too, I think it's just a little too stark. I will look at steam, but my local store doesn't carry the affinity paint swatches, so I'll have to go to another paint store in the city to get it. It appears online to be very similar to white dove and cloud white, which I think are too 'dark'.

Anyone ever used Frostine?

We are now going to use quartz countertops, definitely in white. I just couldn't justify the expense of marble or quartzite in this house. I will probably paint the kitchen cabinets a gray, maybe fieldstone.

Can i just say that picking a white is so much harder than picking wall colors. There are just way too many, and while I can narrow it down, I can also think of cons to them all.

Steam (AF-15) (LRV-84) is lighter than white dove (LRV-83), and less stark than Oxford white (LRV-87), but still crisp. I've used all these colors and saw first hand that it is much crisper than WD. That said, it might not work with Fieldstone, which is has a grey tone. I would find something with a grayer undertone. Steam has a beige undertone.

Try Wedding Veil (2125-70) Grey undertone and LRV-84. White Diamond is just a tad softer (LRV-83).

Even if the store does not carry the swatch up front, they probably have all the fan decks behind their desk. You can also ask for a sample at any place that carries BM and that's really the only way you will know if you like that particular white. I would also sample it directly where you intend on painting.

This post was so incredibly informative and helpful, thank you very much for taking the time to explain the hues. In the last week, I painted all of my wall color samples on their own flat canvas, and also did a smaller canvas of Simply White and Snowfall. I threw Cotton balls in there too, but immediately eliminated it. Snowfall won out, as you and a couple of others had indicated it should, it just looked fresh and clean next to my colors without being too stark. For cabinet color I eliminated Fieldstone and pretty much everything else, including Sea Haze(I see too much green), the shade next to Gray Owl. I will either do them Gray Owl, or possibly darken that color a bit. After reading your post, I realize I wasn't finding another gray to coordinate with the hue of Gray Owl, and that it would make more sense to just use it and do the walls in White Wisp.

Cotton Balls has a tiny, tiny, ever so slight, snidge more chromaticity than Snowfall. Otherwise, they are almost identical. It's a snidge more of the hue, green-yellow. It would be correct to call it green-yellowness.

Those who sense that technical difference but don't know how to articulate it correctly may describe how they're perceiving the color comparison different ways:

• Cotton Balls looks "bluer" than Snowfall.
• Cotton Balls looks "grayer" than Snowfall.
• Cotton Balls is a "cooler" white than Snowfall.
• Cotton Balls is more "neutral" than Snowfall.
• Snowfall is a "warmer white" than Cotton Balls.
• Snowfall looks "yellower" than Cotton Balls.
• Cotton Balls has a "gray undertone" and Snowfall does not.

Can't argue with the way people choose to describe how they're experiencing color. However, it is possible to decipher what they say and correlate it to a technically correct framework in order to compare, analyze, and manage color. (that framework being a color system that organizes color into simple, useful, and concise categories of hue, value, and chroma)

For cabinet color I eliminated Fieldstone and pretty much everything else, including Sea Haze(I see too much green), the shade next to Gray Owl. I will either do them Gray Owl, or possibly darken that color a bit.

I never recommend tweaking color formulas - it's a totally unnecessary and expensive exercise in futility. You don't know what you're going to get until they mix the custom color and it's dry. Whether you like it or not, you own the can.

By searching for a color in the same hue family neighborhood with the same lightness and chroma as Gray Owl - but - with less greeness, I came up with Gray Huskie 1473 and Ozark Shadows AC-26. Either one would be stunning on kitchen cabinets.

Pull those chips and see if one of them clicks for you (and your space) as being like Gray Owl but darker before going down the tweaking-color-formula-bunny-hole.

Good luck with your project.

Coincidentally, I have a kitchen saved with gray huskie cabinets that I absolutely love(I'll try to include a pic), and I happened to have a sample of cape may cobblestone, which is one shade darker, so I tried that this week. I just started to worry it looked purple, or maybe it made my gray owl look too cool/blue?

Certain qualities of light can sometimes make chromatic grays, like Cape May Cobblestone, from this region of the color wheel look purplish.

Oftentimes, lightening the value mitigates the sensation of purplish. For example, can have two colors from the same hue family, same amount of colorfulness/chroma but one is lighter in value than the other. The darker one could show with an edge of purple, the lighter one not so much.

With chromatic grays, the smallest shifts in value or chroma can make a huge difference. In other words just because Cape May Cobblestone looks purplish, that doesn't necessarily mean Gray Huskie, which is lighter in value, will too.

Lori A. Sawaya and jolynne28 I found this discussion fascinating! I wish I understood value and chroma! Lori you really seemed to make it so simple for jolynne! I've been agaonizing for a year! Is it possible to pick a white for cabinets and trim without knowing your wall color yet?! My countertops are Caesarstone Nougat and my appliances are white! So I think I want an soft off white to match the counters without it being too bad with the white appliances. Right now the cabinets are SW alabaster but that seems to go kind of a weird dingy greenish something sometimes. I'm looking at SW snowbound or switching to BM in snowfall, cotton balls, simply white, etc ...i don't know. My eyes cross trying to figure out which large sample goes best. Then I want to do the whole house trim the same color. Right now it is honey oak. I don't have my wall paint picked because I don't have furniture picked. Is there a certain order I should do this in or can I move forward with a cabinet/trim paint? (please say yes!)

i don't have a lot have a lot of natural light except from a skylight over the cabinets on bright days in Minnesota. (Few in the long winter!)

Is it possible to pick a white for cabinets and trim without knowing your wall color yet?! My countertops are Caesarstone Nougat and my appliances are white!

Yes. The countertops and appliances are major components in the overall "envelope" of the space you're creating.

Use those as the benchmarks for choosing a color of white for the cabinets and trim throughout the whole house. To make it easier, just use the same color on the cabinets and trim.

I'd use the countertops for the #1 component to determine which color of white is the right one. Appliances second most important. Becuase odds are the appliances will be replaced way before the countertops. The cabinet color/countertop color relationship is more important and more permanent.

If you have a well-color-coordinated envelope of major/permanent elements, it will be a harmonious foundation to build on and it will also inform your furniture and decor choices going forward.

If you have a well-color-coordinated envelope of major/permanent elements, it will be a harmonious foundation to build on and it will also inform your furniture and decor choices going forward.

That's what I'm afraid of....ending up where I never intended!

I'd use the countertops for the #1 component to determine which color of white is the right one.

Ok, good ,at least that's what I've been trying to do.

Any SW or BM suggestion for Caesarstone Nougat?

Why are whites so hard? Am I making it harder than it needs to be?

Should I start a new post since I've now hijacked the original?

Should I start a new post since I've now hijacked the original?

lol! Probably a good idea.

Although everyone here is very tolerant and super nice when conversations take off in other directions. It's a discussion forum, discussion happens. Whaddya gonna do. :)

I don't mind at all if y'all keep going on here! But if decide to please add a link so I can follow, I'm interested too! Oh and here's a pic of our kitchen, although not a very good one, we are down to the last few weeks.

Thanks you two :-)

jolynne28 your kitchen looks beautiful so far!! What colors did you end up using for the cabinets (Gray Owl or Gray Huskie?), walls (white wisp?), and trim (snowfall?)?!

Gray huskie on the cabinets, snowfall on all trim and white wisp on walls.

Wow, the Gray Huskie looks amazing.

@Lori A. Sawaya I need help selecting Benjamin Moore white cabinets to go with Cambria Britannica Marble countertop (the one with gray veins). I've narrowed down to White Dove and Decorator White. Which one would work better?

@gtp123 - I don't know. Hard to say from here.

I would want to measure the colors in the counter top and base the paint color selection on that data as well as physical samples.

We have Britannica in this kitchen and I wouldn’t use white dove, it’ll look dingy next to the countertops. You need a clean white, I’d sample Decorator’s White and Chantilly Lace. Hold them next to your countertop sample and see what works best. I would probably lean more towards Chantilly Lace, but I’ve used it before in another house and loved it.