Charlikin here! The repainting has started! In his non-copious spare time, my super has started repainting the living room. First he spent a LONG time replastering the dining room wall that had all the water damage from the roof - he didn't like the job the other painter did. (Perfectionists - sheesh! ;-)) Anyway, I've now got a lovely coat of Abingdon Putty on most of the living room & dinette. Still have to do the foyer and hallway, and that won't get done till after New Year's, unfortunately. (Why shouldn't this drag on, just like everything else...sigh.) It looks great! Super-neutral - very much like Monroe Bisque but without the orangey-pinky-yellow that I objected too. Very slight green tinge - VERY slight. Nice color. (Thank you, Amy, for the suggestion! ;-)) Can't wait to get the carpet & furniture, curtains, pictures on the walls... i.e. can't wait to have a HOME again!!! charlikin

Kendrah. I checked BM Monterey. White and this is in the Yellow Hue family. It has an LRV 77.3 which means it reflects a good amount of light. It has 9.8 Chroma which means it has a good bit of noticeable color. It’s Hue angle is 100.5 which puts it in the cool yellow Hue Family. So i believe this will look yellow in you perception. That might work with a medium to deep pure green. I wouldn’t use with black shutter. I looked at several other choices, but you really have to select your shutter color first so we can coordinate values, etc. let’s work on that first.

Amylou, I do hope you'll try "pink chocolate" for yourself. I had some "Ruby" brand bars last spring and they were delicious. Slightly fruity but definitely chocolate, is how the taste struck me. Perennialfan, I had rolled ice cream once at a local shop. It was fun watching it be made but for me it's a novelty thing, not worth going out of my way for. For your other question, ice cream bars are good for convenience, either portable or portion-control -- but given a choice I'd take ice cream in a bowl.

I would get a paint sample of both the BM Shadow and the SW Quixotic Plum as suedonim suggested. They do seem very close. I layered them below, but of course I used online photos which are not always acurate. It can look entirely different in your homes’ lighting. The only thing I see is the Shadow (You can barely see the different colored square on the right) may be a hint lighter and maybe greyer??? I don’t think you can make a wrong chose as they are both so pretty and as you said ”elegant”. Do you get to chose any granite you want or are you limited to a few choices that your contractor supplies? Can you wait until the cabinets are in and then pick a countertop? I was even wondering if a butcher-block countertop might look nice? I agree that you don’t need to have any purple in the counters to tie in with the cabinets. That way if you did ever want to change the color on the cabinets down the road, you are not limited in any way. I cannot wait to see how things turn out! Please do keep us posted.