Sorry but honestly if you have tested it in your light and with your stuff how will seeing it in someones elses situation help you at all. IMO go get actual sampl can of the paint and a large poster board paint 2 coats and then move it around in all times of the day I like all LED lighting in 4000K to make this a bit easier to do .Everything you own in a space affects the wall color that is a fact you cannot avoid and no one can help with that. I will give you my opinion I woudl not choose tha color as a neutral it in my eye looks too much like flesh I have never found beiges to be neutral and never use them for clients. I much prefer a very pale almost white sage green if I need a neutral in a space where furniture and carpets have not been chosen so like this cut 25% is my go to, think nature not much beige going on there .

Never select colors from a computer screen

If you are getting new furniture, you are putting the cart before the horse by trying to select a paint color first. There are literally hundreds of different paint colors, but you'll find sofas come in maybe a dozen colors - two dozen at the most. If you're not changing your floors, start by getting upholstery samples to look at next to your floors. Once you order furniture, you will be waiting months for it to be delivered. Get the largest size upholstery samples you can get and then choose a wall color. You will have plenty of time to paint before the furniture comes in.

If you're not sure about the undertones in a color, sometimes holding the sample against a piece of white copier paper will make the undertone more obvious. Do this with your upholstery samples as well. Neutrals have an undertone. There are plenty of postings on this forum from people who didn't realize their gray sofa was going to look slightly purple or green until it was delivered.

Finally, the flagship paint stores of major brands frequently have a color consultant who will come out to your house for a nominal fee and help you select paint colors. You will need to have your upholstery samples available if you do this as otherwise the person will be working without complete information.

I am first going to agree with others - buy your sofa and other furniture before selecting your paint color.

Second - Oxford White and White Heron are the same color, and it would be very unusual for this color to go pink. It has a slight warmth that sometimes shows as a creamy yellowish white, but it is one of the safer neutral whites.

When testing whites I always use very large samples. (3'x4' or just paint a drywall board).

I do the large sample because you don't see the undertones easily since the paint is white and has very little pigment. We often don't see the colors until we have painted a large area. The last thing I want to do is paint a whole room and look around and say "damn, this is blue (green, pink, yellow). So much easier to paint a large sample and live with it in your home, move it around your home and know what to expect before painting any of the walls.

This is a new build and we have to paint next week, with a move in date beginning of september. I am trying to find a safe neutral that i can match furniture to later. in the perfect world i would have all decor picked out and then paint but i cant do that right now. we will probably go a few months without a living room set and that is ok. priority is finishing the house. There wont be repainting once we move in.

This is my space that im picking a color for.

my bathrooms all have warm grey tile so i am doing drift of mist there but i wanted a lighter neutral for this space.

fireplace has a similar grey insert to this

and the stone is this Grand banks.

Trim and kitchen cabinets will be pure white with brown stained island.

so need to go off those elements to pick a safe neutral.

Here is the white heron in my space that sw paint consultant recommended.

I want a warmer look that can still go with grey of fireplace but not a grey wall color.

Any ideas?

i also tried origami (too grey) and toque white (too peachy) and those were a big no.

@Jennifer Hogan, I think you are talking Bm White Heron/Oxford White. The OP is talking SW paint. So different colors.

The best it would be to go to the store, ask for off white collection, look what you might like and try to get a few samples and put on the walls. It is the safest method. Just like you, I struggled with paint options on my new built. Got samples, put on the wall, turned out ok for me. I was choosing from BM.

i will test more out but need guidance which direction to try.

@Jennifer Hogan

would a yellower paint maybe work better then the red hue of White Heron?

maybe SW creamy or alabaster? would that go with the grayness of fireplace?

even though there are lots of windows there are also covered porches on south and north side so no direct light coming in.

Why not just use SW Pure White in matte/flat on the walls? It will go with all your fixed elements and you won't have any issues with any furniture color either.

SW Snowbound could work with your gray elements too.

I agree with @chispa to do the same color on the walls as on the trim only in a matte finish, especially since you haven't yet selected your furnishings. You can always repaint over the white after you determine the overall palette for the room.

SW White Heron is a member of the yellow hue family, so if it goes pink then that's a function of the lighting in your room. Mark is correct in that you can't select a color from a computer monitor, or a printed page or what the color looks like in someone else's home.

https://www.colorsmithabq.com/blog/choosing-the-perfect-white

J Sk - you were absolutely right - I was referring to BM not SW.

@Zory - Reading the rest of your descriptions I would stick with pure white for the walls if you are choosing a white.

You have already selected pure white for your trim and your cabinets. Whites are snobs and don't play well together. If you have ever owned white shorts and try to find the same white in a shirt or jacket you know getting a matching white that doesn't leave one looking dingy or yellow is really difficult.

The safest option is to use flat on the ceiling, eggshell on the walls and a satin or semi gloss on doors, cabinets and trim.

SW Pure White is a very nice white with just a touch of warmth. It should look nice with your flooring and your fireplace.

Drift of Mist is beautiful with Pure White Trim.

If I were dead set on getting a color lighter than Drift of Mist and using Drift of Mist and Pure White I would get samples of each and mix a few samples of a combination of the two.

25% Drift Of Mist / 75% Pure White

50% Drift Of Mist / 50% Pure White

75% Drift Of Mist / 25% Pure White

Keeping your neutral choices limited and simple is often much more successful than trying to bring 2 or 3 or 4 different neutral paint colors together.

I‘m afraid of doing everything pure white. I’m not much of a decorator and i feel with everything being pure white all the focus is on the decor. will it look too stark?

With children around, will pure white show more dirt and scuff marks then an off white or neutral in the 70’s lrv range.

@Jennifer Hogan do you do the sample mixing yourself? how would you get the color you like to translate to gallons for painting?

Do you want a light and bright feel to your space or something a bit more "moody" ?

I recently built and had most of my public space painted in BM Winds Breath and regretted it pretty quickly. Six months later I am now repainting it myself and going with BM White Dove. My trim, ceilings and cabinets are BM Chantilly Lace.

Winds Breath LRV 70 vs LRV 83 for White Dove.

I am much happier with the lighter/brighter paint color. Still have a few more rooms to finish!

Your primed walls don't look stark/bad in your photo, so SW Pure White LRV 84 will probably look pretty good. With a darker color you will be turning your lights on during the day.

There are so many thousands of colors to choose from, I wouldn't suggest trying to mix your own. Cutting a color by a percentage or mixing two or more colors is not guaranteed to get you what you want, and you'll just become more frustrated and confused. Using the same white will not look stark or boring, but cohesive and easy to decorate around. You've got so many decisions to make when building a home why make things more difficult? When we built our vacation home many years ago, we used the same white paint color on all walls and trim and have never regretted it!

I often end up tweaking colors to get exactly what I want. I like SW paint, but find that the neutrals are often too neutral, but the next step up is too colorful, so I often mix a neutral and a color to get something between their 2 chroma levels.

It isn't rocket science and this example really straight forward - nothing fancy at all.

There are different bases in every paint line. Both Drift of Mist and Pure White are mixed in the SW Extra White Base. This makes mixing and matching much easier.

I take an oral medicine syringe to measure my paint and mix them in little containers or dishes.

Oral syringes may list the quantity in ML or CC. 1 ML = 1 CC.

8 ccs is usually more than enough for a 2 coat 8 1/2 x11 sample

2 ccs paint 1 + 6 ccs paint 2 = 25%/75%

4 ccs paint 1 + 4 ccs paint 2 = 50%/50%

6 ccs paint 1 + 2 ccs paint 2 = 75%/25%

When I have selected my new color I ask for the formula for a quart of each of the 2 paint colors.

There are 4 quarts to a gallon, so the math is pretty simple if you are just using 2 colors.

(See sample below).

If I am mixing several colors or using colors that have different bases ( not your situation), or decide that I want a split that is 60/40 or 33/66 or something else that doesn't work out quite as cleanly, I will still get the formulas and do the math so I have an approximate idea of what the formula should be and then have the store do a computer color match to my sample.

I always make them test their match on my sample before I accept it. (Have them paint a small splotch on your 8 1/2 x 11 sample. Let it dry and take it outside under natural daylight to see if it is the same.)

If the sample is not the same I have the paint mixer come outside to look at it with me so they can see the issue and tweak the formula.) Since I am using their base and their colorants to create my sample they can match it or get very very close. Changing brands makes color matching much more difficult and sometimes impossible due to the different base colors and colorants being used by every manufacturer).

Often comparing my "mathematical results" to the computer generated formula will help with the tweaking.

Sample of formula math:

One of the reasons cutting formulas does not work out well is that the base contains some level of colorant.

If your formula is 3 oz of white and .5 oz of yellow in the extra white base (slightly gray) and you cut the formula in 1/2 you now have

1.5 oz of white and 1/4 oz of yellow mixed with the gray white.

It isn't twice as light or bright - it is muddier because you have decreased the white without decreasing the gray.

Wow, Jennifer, that is amazing that you can mix your own colors using the mathematical formulas. It sounds very complicated and exacting, and I don't think many homeowner or designers (myself included) could attempt that. I usually can find a pre-mixed color to use and get fabulous results!

If you are uncomfortable with mixing your own colors there are two SW colors that I would test that may work for you.

Every color has 3 attributes

L=Luminance (how light or dark (Black=0, pure white =100)

C=Chroma (how colorful vs gray (pure gray=0)

H=Hue - where the color falls on the color wheel.

We need the light to be lighter than Drift of Mist (86), but not so light that we don't have any contrast with the Pure White (93).

Origami White was too gray, so we need a chroma greater the 4.27

White Heron and Toque White are too peach/pink so we want the hue higher than 86, but not so high that it starts leaning too green.

Heron Plume and Pearly White both fit within those parameters.

@Diana Bier Interiors, LLC -

I studied IT and computer science in the early 1980s. I was often the only woman in the class.

We were told that women weren't as good as men in math and science. Women can't do the job.

It wasn't true then and it isn't true now. If we want our daughters to have the same opportunities as our sons we need to stop perpetuating untruths.

The math I did really isn't much different than altering a recipe to feed 2 instead of 8 or 16 instead of 8.

Addition, subtraction, division, multiplication and fractions aren't advanced math subjects, they are taught in elementary school.

I'm sure you do more difficult math when figuring out wallpaper with repeat patterns or have to figure out square footage for carpeting multiple rooms. I've read too many of your posts to believe that you are not capable of doing most anything you put your mind to.

I would be glad to walk you through the math if my example was confusing, but please don't count yourself out, don't assume that women aren't capable and can't do elementary math. We can and we do it every day when we figure out recipes and pay the bills and figure out how much interest we can save if we refinance a loan or how much medicine to give our kids based on their weight.

@Jennifer Hogan I'm not math-phobic, I have a masters degree in Accounting and I'm a CPA, as well as being a design professional. I love numbers, puzzles, and figuring things out. I teach Accounting to college students and believe that with effort most fairly intelligent men and women can use their math skills in their everyday life. The Accounting profession is very heavily female at this point in time, which is a 180 degree turn from where it was 40 or 50 years ago. So no, I am not afraid of math, and yes I use math all the time in my business when calculating wallpaper requirements, pricing jobs, determining profitability, accounting for my business transactions and preparing my tax returns.

The caveat is that I don't feel the need to do what you describe when I can easily find a color from the thousands offered by the paint manufacturers. And I especially don't like being talked down to. Have a nice day.

You can't DO this business without competency in math.....

You will go broke if you try. Btw.... I am not even referring to your tax woman or man : ) The rest of it? It's a lot of math.

I fell in love with SW White Heron initially for its name because I'm a girl and see egrets and herons almost daily. Its been my go-to for years and I always have it mixed in Benjamin Moore paint. I see it as a pale taupe, less beige than BM white heron.

I've used on every ceiling and all doors/trim that are not stained (cherry tones). Lower level wall paint colors are BM Super White (kitchen) and BM Chantilly White ((LR, DR, , entry).

@Jennifer Hogan thank you for examining those colors. Will Heron Plume and Pearly White both go with pure white trim?

@Diana Bier Interiors, LLC, I apologize, I was not trying to talk down to you, I was responding to your statement "It sounds very complicated and exacting, and I don't think many homeowner or designers (myself included) could attempt that.".

I am very cognoscente of implicit bias and it's impact on gender and racial equality. More and more women are joining the accounting profession/ finance sector. They make up 56% of the finance sector which has the second largest gender pay gap of all business sectors.

Women fail the CPA exam at a greater rate (Only 40% of CPAs are female) and are far less likely to be promoted or manage the largest accounts (Only 21% make partner). Female accounting professors are ranked lower than their male counterparts by students. The implicit or unconscious bias that women aren't good at math permeates the work environment. The social engraining that men are better at math impacts women at every step of their careers, including the self confidence that they can pass the CPA exam. If you are told often enough that you can't you will begin to believe it to be true.

I offer to mentor and help any woman that I hear say "I can't" because I don't believe they can't and I recognize the impact of implicit gender bias on our society. My grandmothers fought to gain the right for women the to vote. My mother fought to ensure that women were given equal access to education (not guaranteed until 1972) and financial independence (women couldn't get a credit card in their name if they were married until 1974). I continue to fight for equality, inclusion and diversity in the workplace and throughout society.

Is it any wonder that there was 180 degree change in the number of women becoming accountants in the past 50 years when many schools wouldn't admit women in that field of study 50 years ago.

@Zory

In my opinion both Heron Plume and Pearly White will have enough contrast to look like intentional choices and not mistakes when paired with Pure White. The LRVs (Light reflectance value) is very similar to White Heron. The difference is that they are more colorful/less gray (Chroma) and more yellow/less orange in hue than White Heron. The fact that Pure White is pretty neutral with just the slightest hint of yellow makes it work well with most of the warm neutral colors really well.

We all like different colors and you seem to be quite sensitive to pinks/peach/orange tones, so my goal in helping you select options was to move away from the pinks/peach/orange/violet to the more yellow. Along with Heron Plume and Pearly White I did also list two colors that lean a bit greener and might be too green. They would be way too green for me, but may be perfect for you. (Modern White and Nuance).

I happen to love purple and wine reds and for my home I picked a neutral described by BM as "A dusty pink that fades into a cool lilac-gray." (Frosted Toffee). It is pretty similar to SW Reticence. White Heron looks pretty darn neutral compared to the color I selected for my home. I would have selected White Heron over the other neutrals, but understand perfectly that you don't like that undertone.

Here is a SW ColorSnap sheet that shows all the colors we discussed

I think you can see why I would select White Heron over the other neutrals given my color choice for my home. White Heron is very popular right now, as are a few other pink/violet taupe colors. That may be a large part of why your color consultant recommended the color. But popular doesn't mean that it is the right color for your house or the color that go with the things you own or is a color that will make your heart sing.

I've mixed my own paint in the past. I tend to agree with Diana, for most of us it just isn't worth our time ... nothing to do with math or being female.

Isn't it wonderful that we all get to choose how we spend our free time? I have been painting with oils and acrylics for 50 years. I love color. I love studying the science of color, the emotional impact of color, how color impacts our mental health and how color measurement differs from the human perception of color. I enjoy understanding color trends and how they relate to our economy and social structure.

I don't look at this as work, it is simply something I enjoy, like baking pastries from scratch, canning fruits and making home made jam, growing roses that have amazing scents, making my own candles and soaps and playing with fragrances, playing with my dog or renovating my home.

You must have other interests that are more interesting and provide you with more joy than mixing paint colors to get that illusive shade that is just not quite what SW or BM have decided to produce.

Yeah, most of the time these days a good enough color works and I don't need to hunt for the elusive "perfect" color ... although I did repaint my main rooms three times! lol My excuse is that it was new construction and it was hard to get right until everything was finished and all furniture and art was in place!

I liked the white heron but was afraid of too much pink flashing. tried the heron plume and that seems better. The pearly white has a yellow/green tint to it in some lights and i think once we plant grass the green will be more dominant.

so as of now we will probably go with heron plume but i have a bit more time to think about it since painting got pushed back 2 weeks.

Thanks Jennifer for the color options.

Anyone have any design ideas for colors that would go with Heron Plume? since im starting from scratch with decor and furniture Im all ears :)

Honestly.......you're looking for "forever" magic in a paint color. There is no "forever" in paint. Even the most neutral of neutral whites will look different once furnishings come into play.

I'd use BM "Navaho White" and not wring hands at all. Not a fan of SW paint...sorry.

The neutral you chose works well with your flooring. Both are taupe (Somewhere between gray and orange or pink beige) As soon as you went just a bit too yellow or green beige the colors screamed yellow or green.

Your flooring over Maria Killam's neutral color wheel.

Your flooring with Pearly White (you saw green), White Heron and Jan's suggestion of BM Navajo White.

Your flooring with White Heron and Heron Plume - Slightly less pink than White Heron, but not as far toward yellow/green as Pearly White.

You need a bit of pink to work with the pink in the flooring. White Heron is beautiful, but the pink is more dominant than in Heron Plume which just hints of pink.

I tried putting blue heron in my space, but he flew away before I could grab him.

Okay, I will go back to work.

Bm Navajo white not my favorite color. I have it in my garage ( didn't choose it). It is very creamy, I got used to it in my garage but I wouldn't choose for my contemporary interiors.

Does anyone have an idea of what paint color to pick to achieve the look in the stone fireplace picture. That will actually be our same stone. I’ve been looking a drift of mist, pearl white, shoji white, etc. the other pic is my floor and countertops/cabinets!

It will be a south facing room

@ebroman29, maybe Bm Glacier White. Here are few pictures my home. The whole floor painted Bm Glacier White.