Gray (or Something Like It)

I admit it: everything takes me forever.  I have been in my house for three years and still haven't put up curtains in our family room.  I am still using end tables I "borrowed" from my mother.  And I am still mulling over the paint color.  Oh, the paint color.

Sadly, this is not my house.  Click here to see more of it.

For about a year after we moved in I was totally fine with our gray walls.  Gray is *everywhere* in our house--the entire family room, up the stairs, the entire upstairs hallway.  You simply can't look anywhere without seeing it.  Well, after about a year, I was D-O-N-E.

Don't get me wrong, I don't have a problem with gray generally, not even gray walls.  In High School I even designed an all-gray house in my interior design class, which clearly proves that I am a prescient genius when it comes to color trends.  I am absolutely thrilled to my core that people are using more gray.  But like any color, it has a million different personalities depending on the room it's in, the shade of gray, the light, the other elements of the room, and a bazillion other factors.  It can be dark and moody or light and airy, or even earthy.

Or, as in my house, gray can have all the personality of a cinder-block prison cell.  This particular color makes me feel like I live in Arkham Asylum.  I must change it.  I just need to find the perfect beige and start painting.  Easy breezy.  Except I cannot find the perfect beige, and after weeks (okay, months) of looking at patchwork walls I am really getting tired of this process.  I have tried no fewer than 15 colors.  But everything I try is too light...too dark...too pink..too yellow...too gray...sigh.  Am I just super picky?

Have your walls ever looked like this?  For six months?
Oh...well, guess it's just me then.

The good news: I think I finally found the color.  This room has been my inspiration for the last two years:

Photo: Rachel Reider Interiors

Out of sheer desperation I finally emailed the very talented woman who designed this room, Rachel Reider, who was kind enough to write me back and share the color she used: Pismo Dunes by Benjamin Moore.  You likey?  I am running out right now to get a sample.  Cross your fingers for me and hope it looks as good in my room as it does in hers.  Now, all I need is three more years and maybe I will get around to hanging some curtains.