I know this is a good 5 years later, but I was wondering if you still live in this house because it sounds like the exact description of the house I live in. We bought it in 2009. The rooms in the house and the layout is my exact house except the larger room upstairs is a parlor connecting to a smaller bedroom, and the living room is actually a dining room and the downstairs bedroom was never a bedroom but a parlor. They used it as a bedroom after they turned the downstairs bedroom into a bathroom and large gentlemen's closet. Anyways, I hope you get this because even if it is a different house, I would like to know what you decided! We are trying to figure out exterior colors at the moment. As far as I know the house has always been white, but it has such beautiful molding and gingerbread trim that I need ideas on accent colors for a white house.

We want something that has gray undertones but is on the lighter side. Repose gray was too dark, china white was (shocking I know) too white, edgecomb was the closest so far but husband still thinks it's too gray, and mineral by Behr was too icy almost blue. Let me suggest a different way to think about this. Obviously, thinking in terms of undertones isn't getting you anywhere. #1 - every color of gray belongs to a hue family. In other words you can find grayed down colors of red, orange, yellow, green, etc. #2 - there are different degrees of grayness. Think of gray like a dial on a paint color and you can turn the gray up to make it more gray or turn it down to make it less gray and more colorful. #3 - it is not possible for a paint color to have "gray undertones". A paint color's degree of grayness has nothing to do with "undertones". It's simply about how much a color has been grayed down or not. Try HC-84 Elmira White. Same hue family neighborhood and lightness as Edgecomb, just a smidge less grayness.

Nicole, what direction do the windows face -- north, south, east, west? I think your third inspiration picture is lovely and also the easiest to follow. The wall color, white fireplace, and adding crown molding are all fairly easy changes; the paint color in that photo is SW Agreeable Gray. Of course, it depends how much light your living room gets, because that inspiration room looks as if it gets lots of natural light, in part because it has windows on at least two different walls. What's harder is your sofa. Have you noticed that the sofas in your inspiration pics all have white slipcovers or are a very very light tan/beige? So if you're committed to keeping the couch, you're already losing a major element and there's a good chance the style will be off from the start. I'm not sure if you know, but that inspiration picture is from this IG, https://www.instagram.com/bluebarnandcottage/ More on the house here, http://www.homebunch.com/beautiful-homes-of-instagram-50/ The blog post has lots of details for the living room, from paint colors to sources for the rugs to how they did the fireplace.

Every color is different depending on the natural light and artificial light. Paint poster-board, edge to edge, leaving no white border so that you can move the board freely and see how your light affects it.