I painted the ceiling of our dining room with a metallic gold glaze. I taped-off the area and prepped it with a coat of white primer and a heavy base coat of canary yellow. After this dried I rolled on 7- 10 coats of the gold glaze. using long continuous strokes with little overlap. (overlaps show). The reason for the numerous coats was to provide a depth of glaze coverage that hide the overlaps and made the ceiling look more "liquid." It came out wonderfully and did not look gaudy in the least. The walls were completed with a mauve/wine colored glaze over bubblegum pink base coat, using a brush stippling method. The trim and ceiling medallion were white and brought separation and balance to the room.

You might get more responses posting this on the Home Decorating forum along with photos. There are several posters who have tested the grays and might be able to help.

We used Albescent OC40 on all of the trim, doors, and staircase spindles when we built our house 12 years ago. It's a beautiful colour and I think it goes well with our dark oak floors. Now we are starting to go through the house room at a time and repainting using more neutral colours this time. We just finished our bedroom and I used BM Muslin OC12. We think it looks good with the Albescent. It's very similar, just a shade darker. I don't want to paint the whole house Muslin, but I'm having a hard time finding other neutrals that I think will look good with the existing paint trim.

QUOTE: I'm making exactly this decision now--whether to go all Aura or only in the rooms with intense color or with high kid traffic and flat paint. Being a decorative artist/painter I have been using BM products for over 25yrs. Each consumer's needs for the type, brand and quality of paint being used may depend on different aspects of how the room will be utilized, (as you have pointed out). If you are wanting to use just the Aura Affinity colors, the fan deck is limited but you probably already know you can have any of the other BM colors mixed into the Aura bases. For highly used areas where there might be kids, what you really want to look for in a paint is durability, washability, longevity, no rub offs, stain resistance, good hiding pigments. I would not suggest flat paint of any paint manufacturer, whether it be from the brands premium coatings or from the contractor grade. Flat paints are to high in PVC and not enough solid count. For kids rooms and highly traffic areas I would consider using an eggshell and not a matte. For baths I would consider using at least an eggshell or some satins. Kitchens I would use at least an eggshell finsih. I have been in lots of homes where grease has reached unbelievable areas and this is where the better grade or sheen in kitchens should be used. Bedrooms , dining rooms, family rooms can withstand matte sheens or at least eggshell. Bedrooms where children are I would consider using at least an eggshell. Laundry- eggshell. Mattes are ok here, but some of the BM mattes or for that matter any brand "are not" burnish resistant. If you are wanting a bold intense saturated color the preview deck is the one to look at. A lot of these colors are not mixed with black and are not muted or dulled back , and some may require the use of their Aura undercoater first(primer). In this case, with the particular pigments used, I would really suggest using a good colored primer whether it be gray (which will suffice for most vivid colors) or their red/yellow undercoater. Don't take a chance on going with the assumption you can paint with Aura using no primer "in these instances". One reason Aura can be used without the aid of a primer is because of the type of inorganic pigments used; not to mention the other qualities-being a closed gennex waterborne pigment. So, what I am trying to say to you pmacbee, you don't necessiarly have to use BM- Aura; you can use other quality brands of paint . The one thing I would like to suggest is to look for a quality paint that contains 100% acrylic resins which is the ultimate staple and backbone of any paint.