I have a LOT of orange in my house, and in fact, my house IS orange. I've had a look at your Canyon Orange and I think the basic problem is that I would not ever think to combine it with grey. It is similar to my DR ceiling, actually, a room that has wallpaper with a cream background (and the orange in it, along with purple and green). And plain cream on the walls other than that. So if that is your orange colour, I would go with a bright cream, not grey (*and not beige!!!*). But... why is that your chosen orange colour? I would pick an accent colour to help pull together other, less flexible elements in the room, not to create another element that needs to be integrated. The accent colour would be an outcome, not a input. Do you have any prints in the room? I find wallpaper, rugs, or upholstery to be a good place to unite all the different colours. We usually start with a wallpaper, actually, and then the room is always automatically pulled together as long as we stay within sight of the palette of the wallpaper. Maybe you have a piece of artwork, or could add one, that puts your chocolate brown with a good orange and the other tones you are working with? Whatever you use, it could give you the neutral you are after, and help you pinpoint the right orange for the chocolate brown (although I think the shade you've chosen is good for the brown). I know wallpaper is out of style (other than at my house :-)), but from what you've described, a print somewhere in the room might be a welcome change from all the unicolor items. Other orange combinations that we have... the house is P&L Mineral Red and is trimmed with a mid green and Black Magic (dark purple). The stairwell is a creamsicle shade from SW with white trim. And I have some furniture painted a wonderful burnished reddish orange combined with purple in one case, and navy in another. As for brown... I like it with a soft lilac, and I love orange and purple together. You might be able to find a lilac that would work with both your orange and your brown. Sounds insane, I know, but if you keep it very subtle it could work - a clear tone, not greyed. Or a sage green? Anything but grey :-) Karin L

As to choosing a particular white, I chose one that went nicely with our granite counters. We started our reno in the kitchen, and it was the door trim close to the counters that I was concerned with at the time. I dropped a whole bunch of BM paint chips on the counter and had a good look. In our case, the Bavarian Cream was a clear winner next to our Kashmir Gold granite. The project later morphed into a whole house reno, and our white looked good throughout, so that's what we kept using. Our walls are mostly blues on the gray side and grays with blue undertones. One bedroom is Dove Wing, which is nearly white, because a huge leafy tree outside that window gives a green glow to the room. A year later, we're painting our bedroom doors and trim Bavarian Cream and we like it very much. The room door, plus the closet and bathroom doors are outside being painted by DH as I type. I expect I'll get roped into painting trim any moment now, buy hey, I've done more than my fair share of painting over the last year. When these doors are done, we'll be finished with the house! Well, inside.

if you were thinking darker-go darker:) most people think lighter:) while dark can be really cool but. take into account the size of the room-if it's much larger than what we see on photos, i wouldn't go too dark, would stay mid-range max..not that you can never go dark in big spaces, but it's already higher level to do this right..or so I feel..demands many other things whether in skills or money or both. I'd also mind the ceilings-how high are they? with darker colors, ceilings should be tinted the wall color..ever so slightly if they're 9 or 10 feet..but I'd say greater proportion is needed if they are standard. otherwise this white ceiling on top of four much darker walls starts looking and feeling like a lid on the pot-too high a contrast on too short a space. crown moldings can help a lot though and make this transition smoother-that lifts the lower ceiling up as well (not to give a wrong impression- you can paint ceiling a different color too. it's just that few people dare. )

PPG's Delicate White. From PPG, SW or BenM. Don't buy it in the cheapest grade. Mid grade at minimum. Always use flat on the ceiling. Never buy a can labeled "ceiling white". It's arctic, stark, gray and awful.