Yes, definitely try out a bunch of color boards before deciding -- colors are so tricky and can look so different in context as opposed to on the computer screen. Whatever you choose, you will certainly wind up with a gorgeous workspace. I do recommend getting your chosen color made up in Benjamin Moore's Aura paint (they can match any other brand's color exactly) - it goes on so beautifully and is very washable. I'm loving mine in my kitchen, which by the way is an antique yellow that took about 8 tries to get right -- so don't be feeling bad about one little blue goof!! :)

My advice is on 3 levels. I'm married to a really nice guy who is also an artist. His ideas are always nearly spot on. He wouldn't tell me no to anything he didn't feel wouldn't be a serious consequence. So I can't relate there. I can relate as someone who has worked with handicapped children. My advice is to wait about 9 months to paint anything. Why? Mothers of handicapped children blame themselves. I've heard some crazy ideas on how they came to think anything that went wrong with the baby was their fault. Chances are your baby will not have issues. If you expose yourself to paint fumes,moving furniture that sort of thing, and something IS wrong, Dollars to donuts it will make you wonder if you damaged your child,even if it had NOTHING to do with it. Hormones affect people's judgment. The big change of having a baby changes affects people's judgment, this includes the entire family dynamics. A few months after the baby is born I'll bet you and yours see this in an entirely different frame of mind. Or be too tired to care! LOL! I'm guessing here so excuse me if I am presumptive. MAYBE it's not the color your husband isn't happy about. Maybe he's trying either consciously or subconsciously to stall the painting process to protect your and the baby. Men are our protectors. My DH would've been very upset with me had I tried to do any home improvement while pregnant with our son. He'd have fussed and worried the entire time.

I am using several purples in our house. I am in the midst of painting most of our rooms so don't have completed pix yet, but we have a very deep dark purple for den and dining room walls (open plan, 2 walls total). It is Purple rain by BM and is a deep velvet purple. It looks amazing paired with bright white trim and I can't wait to see the white Roman shade installed there with it (and eventually see it when the floors get refinished darker and the furniture moves back in). I did a color like patty_cake's plum dandy for our bedroom ceiling (am not at home with the color names handy) and will stencil on the east and west walls of our bedroom in it over a pale gray and also use it inside our bedroom closet. The only one I am not so certain about it our bedroom ceiling. I was trying to break out of the box and do a colored ceiling (inspired by GWers), but I will have to see how I feel about it after the stencil is up and the room is put together. I may have gone too far with that one and may either go lighter, much darker, go white or add a silver metallic glaze to tone it down. It is pretty bold on our vaulted ceiling as it is. We have a light-medium lavender in our kitchen and a very pale lavender in our master bath (mirage white with a hint of the ceiling color added in to make sure the color tone worked). I used more of the bedroom ceiling color mixed with white ceiling paint for inside our coat closet as well. That makes 4 different shades (although our sons' room also has 2 dark bright purple walls with 2 less dark bright green ones, so we really have 5 purples, lol). Our living room, laundry room and hallway will have a perky green color (wales green at 75%). I didn't start out with a plan to paint so much purple, but they came out so nice I just kept going. I live with 2 boys and my dh and it is not terribly girly because none of our furniture or accessories will be purple. We are using a lot of white, gray, black and green with it. We have a very open plan so whatever color we chose would have to flow through several rooms. Reading over this post, it sounds funny, but IRL, it works nicely. I'll be posting as soon as we are further along and can get rid of all the drop cloths, cans of paint and construction debris all over and when we can move our stuff back up out of the bsmt and make it look less empty. I also have to get the stickers off the windows, install WTs and basically decorate from scratch.

Thanks so much for responding. Does anyone have a suggestion for an ashen green? I don't know what that is. hoyamom - I never thought of blue for the ceiling. That's sounds interesting. I had thought about a gray/blue for the walls before we brought in the green chair. I really like the combination of blue and tan. lindybarts - any suggestion from you is like a pearl of wisdom. I LOVE your house! I think I may have to do a larger sample of Svelte Sage o the walls. I don't think it is too gray. Actually, in our DR it is a very nice green. However, we had a green bedroom in our old home and I fell out of love with it pretty quickly. It was more of a blue green, though (with a differnt comforter, etc.) I'm just afraid of painting a color that I'm not in love with. I don't want to be unhappy with my choice in two months. I already have painter's remorse in other areas of my home. And since we are hiring painters for this, I feel a little more pressure to pick the "right" color. Any thoughts on Svelte Sage for the walls with a beige on the ceiling so the crown would show up more?