I love the cabinet color you've chosen and your granite! I'm not the best person to comment, but I DO speak fluent SW, so I'll venture an opinion. First, is your property country (mature trees in back) or suburban (clear cut, view of nieghbour etc) I have a southern exposure for my LR but trees mean little direct light, and much of it has a weird (to me) greenish tinge after reflecting off trees. Something to consider. Second, are you in a northern or southern area? That will also affect the quality of light in your windows. Also, your cabinets and granite seem quite warm toned in the photo--definitely use them to coordinate your color! My impression looking at them is that Silver Strand, which I've tested, wouldn't work at all. Minful Gray might work but I'd be inclined to look at Analytical Gray 7051, Accessible Beige 7036 or Aloof Gray 6197 in addition to Comfort Gray. Hope this helps, good luck!

50-ish, if you find one at 45 or so that you like don't discount it just because of the LRV number. Unless there are standards/color specs involved, LRV is more like a loosey-goosey guideline, not a formula or prescription to follow. And, yes, colors with a higher LRV number have better odds of delivering the light and airy atmosphere you're after vs. darker colors. A dramatically shifting paint color has more to do with its own metameric tendencies vs. the quality of light. A rule of thumb is if your color stays consistent in appearance when viewed in fluorescent and incandescent lighting, it will *probably* be consistent in any light source. More about north light: North exposure is not direct rays of sunlight. Very different from south light beaming into your kitchen almost all day long, or the morning sun bursting through your east facing bedroom windows at the break of day. North light isn’t necessarily reflecting or bouncing off of something else to get inside the space, it’s just that when your windows face north you don’t have actual, direct beams of light entering fenestration. North light is the most balanced from a spectral distribution perspective, it has a nice, even collection of all the wavelengths though it tends to be heavier in the blue range. Because it’s a balanced bundle of wavelengths and also because it is not a direct beaming, or spot-light effect of natural light, north facing rooms are ideal for any kind of artistic work environment. The pronounced blue of north light is a factoid that's been blown way out of proportion. Blogosphere has taken that one single aspect of north light and made a huge deal out of it - I guess because it makes a good 'sound bite' or something. I dunno. But it's kind of a dumb thing to hyper-focus on. Heavy in blue doesn't mean it's gray. Doesn't necessarily mean it's cool either. North light is simply indirect light that's balanced over the visible spectrum as a whole but with a pronounced bump of blue.

Hi, that looks like a really sweet cottage. Congratulations. When I'm choosing colour for our cottage, I look outside for inspiration. The colour of the trees, or the bark, or the colour of moss on a stone. One of my favourites is BM Grey Wisp (CC670). Its a nice neutral grey green that coordinates well with all of nature. Balboa Mist is another that I think is gorgeous and very calming - goes well with everything. I also think dark navy (I like BM - Hale Navy) is a great colour for accents, along with a bright white . I also like Wedgewood Grey (BM HC 146) which in my eyes, is actually blue/green and very pretty for mimicking the colour of nature in my opinion. Depends on the size and style of your bathroom but I've seen pictures of white panelled walls up to chair-rail height with Hale Navy above it and I love that look. The panelling could be board and batten or tongue and groove etc, but painted a bright white. Good luck with your choices and please post after pictures!

What did you decide and how did it turn out? I am in a similar dilemma, but with Agreeable Gray in the well-lit open spaces. It looks so dingy and lifeless in the north-facing bedrooms. I'm leaning now towards just using dark and moody colors.