I used SW Alabaster for walls and ceiling of an east-facing living room, hallway, and stairway (split entry). When I first started painting over the previous off-white it looked kind of cool/blue-ish (Alabaster -- duhh), but once all the walls were painted it looked neutral, and turned out fine. VW

Thanks buddyrose. I absolutely love my silver fox. I'd paint that color again in an instant. Its got enough brown in it to make it neutral but enough gray so it doesn't look like beige. Abalone is a nice compliment but it would be too lilac to do as the main color. I use it the hallway as a neutral transition to the gray and other colors and it works for that. I made the mistake of using stardust and hated it. Its a really chocolaty brown. Looks nothing like it did on the chip. I had to paint over it. The thing about this particular shade is that they really aren't all that similar even though they right next to each other on the paint chip.

I struggled with paint because the lighting and the floors in my house drove me crazy. I even hired a decorator who was very nice but steered me in the wrong direction. I'm very sensitive to peachy/pink ( I don't like it on my walls), and it looks awful with my lighting and gold floors. I needed to brighten up the "open concept" with future resale in mind. We are not in a forever home. I can see us downsizing in the next 3-5 years (although, who knows what will really happen). BM French Canvas did its' job. If I had it my way and didn't have to worry about resale and my house was smaller, I would have possibly gone with a darker color. I cannot stand the thought of us getting older and getting the house ready for a sale with ME painting, or painters "annoying" me in the house. Now, about Oak Floors....I will tell you what I've learned: If you have an option of refinishing your oak floors, you can check into your options ahead of time as to the stain and or color you want. I don't know where you live, but in my area there is a place called "Dalene Flooring" where they display different stains of oak flooring. IF you go with a WATER BASED poly, without stain(and the floor is WHITE OAK), your oak floor will be much lighter and muted, and easier to decorate with. It will look more like natural maple, rather than oak. Again, you need to find out if its RED or WHITE OAK. If it's Red Oak it will look dull light red-ish with water based poly. The OIL POLY turns natural (no stain) oak floors to gold or orange/red. Eventually they look medium color gold, or orange/red, depending on the species of wood. This is my second house with such floors. If you have time and a preference of the floor color check into the staining or leaving the floors natural. I recently have seen some floors white washed, which are gorgeous...again, I would only go that route if I were in a forever home. Bottom line: I would choose the color of the floor that I like first then see which paint goes with it. Floor color is a messy and a big project, and you don't want to refinish the floors AFTER you move in. BM Powell Buff goes with many floor choices, and so does BM Shaker Beige. Both colors are prettier in person. You can buy a sample at your local BM store before you commit to any wall color ;) Water based poly on natural oak, or white wash will keep your oak floor light, and easier to decorate with . Also, some darker stained floors are easier to work with. IMO, the medium oak floors, gold or orange, are the most challenging. I'm sure if you Google or go on Houzz.com you'll find some images. Let me know what you find out.

Our house is mixed, it's mostly warm on the main level except for two rooms - main bathroom and spare bedroom which are cool tones. It looks fine. We've used the floor as the unifier - we have medium stained hardwood throughout the main level except in the two bathrooms, which are done in a warm porcelain tile with flecks of cool green. To make sure my colours were going to look okay together I sketched out a floor plan of the main level on graph paper and put the colour chips for each room in their respective spots and stood back and looked at it as a whole and I am very happy with how it looks. tess