Paint, Paint, Paint

Please excuse my husband photo bombing....

I re-painted our living room over Memorial Day weekend last year, and I've never been happy with the color. I actually painted it the exact same color that was in our dining room because the color in there always looked so nice. Well guess what... It's like a completely different color in the living room! You wouldn't think 10 feet would make that much difference, but the living room just looks so.... blah. I think it's mostly due to the fact that the dining room gets a significant amount of natural light through-out the day, but I just can't get over the lack-luster shade.

I'm determined to find a better color. Over the weekend, I picked up a sample at Lowe's and also tried a paint I had lying around in the basement. Here's what we're working with:

Valspar "Montpelior Madison White"  //  Benjamin Moore "Revere Pewter"

Here are a few rooms featuring each of these colors:

Valspar "Montpelior Madison White"

Benjamin Moore "Revere Pewter"

I had a can of Revere Pewter sitting in the basement because it's actually the color of our kitchen walls. I've read over and over again that it's supposed to be the best "greige" on the market, and I actually do like it in our kitchen. I figured it couldn't hurt to put a swatch of each on a few walls in the living room to see what we thought.

See the dining room walls in the photo above? The living room is the EXACT same color. Don't they look a lot more beige/yellow/ugly, though? It just seems dirty to me. Oh, and you can sort of see the Revere Pewter in the kitchen, too. It's apparently the same color as the swatch on the right above. Really? They sure don't look the same. Actually, take a look at this view...

Revere Pewter is the swatch on the bottom. Can you see it? Yeah, me either. IT LOOKS LIKE THE SAME COLOR AS THE CURRENT PAINT! How is that possible? I swear I painted a swatch there. Here are a few others views, too.

I feel like Revere Pewter would pretty much land me in the same boat I'm currently in - too dark. I like that it has more of a gray undertone as compared to the current paint, though. The Montpeliar Madison White is my favorite, but Tyler thinks it looks blue. I definitely don't want that. I'm thinking it may just be a reflection off of the existing wall color?

Regardless, I've spent WAY too much time thinking about paint. Who knew it could be so hard to paint your walls? Which is your favorite?