<p>Anyone care to share their favorite neutral Ben Moore paint color?</p>
<p>Our awful bedroom is finally getting some attention and DH and I will need to have the paint color argument ( Oh, I mean discussion) very soon.
We love BM and like to support local retailer so that’s a given.</p>
<p>The room currently has orange and yellow and green flowered 1970s wallpaper ( I’m not kidding). Somehow all the other rooms in the house have been done (and redone) but this one never got its turn. So, I am dead set on a ‘boring’ (according to DH) neutral color. It will be heaven after the wild colors there now. Looking at the basic pottery barn beiges/ greys.</p>
<p>Of course, the paint chips and folders with room suggestions just make me more confused.
My current fave is Hazy Skies OC48. Trim will be decorator white.</p>
<p>Other possibilities: bleeker beige HC80, stone harbor 2111-50 and barren plain 2111-60.</p>
<p>If you have a neutral beige/grey color that you’d like to share, I’d love to hear.</p>
<p>I first read your thread as Need Helpin the Bedroom…so much for speed reading!</p>
<p>I have Bleeker somewhere in house but may I suggest yu are going about this backwards…
my decorator friend points out that there are millions of readily avaiable paint colors, then less fabircs, and even less carpet choices…</p>
<p>so, do you already have carpet that is staying? bedspread? drapes? from there you pick you wall apint, after trying it in daylight and evening in YOUR room…</p>
<p>memhismom- well, I might need helpinthebedroom, especially after DH and I squabble over paint colors, but that’s for another thread.</p>
<p>Good point about fabrics and carpets…but EVERYTHING is going. We’re putting up a ‘fake’ tin ceiling that will be white. ORANGE carpet is going and floor will be refinished.
White trim. NO drapes or bed linens will stay.</p>
<p>So, I’m figuring that a true neutral will let me find accessories later that will work.
At least I hope so. The workers are coming this Tuesday to start and I’m not going to hold them off…hard to get folks to come work I don’t care what the economy is like.</p>
<p>Ben Moore used to make the paint for Restoration Hardware. Now it is manufactured by Rodda Paint Co. We have the Silver Sage in our bedroom/master bath. The color changes depending on the light so any number of blues/greens/white/black can be added. The flooring is neutral (tan), and the bedding is porcelain blue and white. There is no pattern in either room. I’ve found the colors to be really soothing. It’s ‘not quite neutral’. :)</p>
<p>The master bedroom always seems to be the last frontier. It doesn’t surprise me that it’s your last hold-out. Have fun!!</p>
<p>That silver sage looks lovely.
That’s kinda the effect I’m looking for, a pale neutral that changes with the light…
DH is into more bold shades with heftier color in them.<br>
Thanks for the tip on Restoration Hardware, love their stuff also.</p>
<p>Yes, two kids’ rooms redone twice each. Master bedroom (really just the largest BR in our old house) never got
priority. Kids grown now so I guess it IS our turn!</p>
<p>We have BM Everlasting in a bathroom. It’s a neutral beige/taupe, on the light side. On the same color strip, but darker, is Stone House, a color that was in the Pottery Barn collection at one point. I’ve also used Restoration Hardware paint in two rooms. It’s great, but you probably won’t like the colors (we have Butter in the living room and Capuccino in a bathroom). I am pretty sure they have some nice neutrals.</p>
<p>We, also, re-did the master bedroom last, after every other room in the house was repainted, some of them twice. We did remove the bubble-gum pink shag carpeting before moving in, but we lived with three (I kid you not) coordinating wallpaper patterns in blue/pink. All the doors and moldings were painted blue, to match the wallpaper. I used to like blue, no more. The room is now BM Quiet Moments (or is it Stolen Moments?), a lovely soft green, without gray or yellow undertones. Our bedding is red/white toile.</p>
<p>On another thread, BM Hampshire Taupe was mentioned, we liked that one for our ‘get rid of the wild color’ bedroom redo, but went one shade darker to Grege Avenue (#991, I believe)</p>
<p>@musicmom - If you have a RH near you they may have the Silver Sage paint up on the walls in part of the store. Keep in mind that it will probably not look as dark in your home because of the natural light. We used the velvet finish (like eggshell), just one above flat. We have ‘anchored’ the room with nice black accents (frames, mirrors, etc.) that seem to give it some balance.</p>
<p>Most of my house is Cameo white, which goes nicely with maple floors. It has tint of yellow. (Linen white has even less yellow, so ends up looking too stark for my tastes).</p>
<p>I have also used Atrium white, which has pink tint (in room with red Oriental rug). In my office, had Antique white, which has a little more pink. </p>
<p>My Pottery barn wheel is old, so didn’t see your colors</p>
<p>Restoration hardware also has paints on the brown side of neutral. We have either cappuccino or latte in our bedroom–I forget. I like it a lot.</p>
<p>Before I bought it, though, I chose a duvet cover (print) and confirmed that it would compliment nicely. The thing about neutrals is that they definitely have undertones-- yellow, pink, green are the colors I see in them the most.</p>
<p>Benjamin Moore: We are living harmoniously with some in the warmer spectrum: HC 34 (Wilmington Tan) and HC36 (Hepplewhite Ivory). I would go deeper in a bedroom, but that’s just me. I like Peanut Shell and Peanut Butter.</p>
<p>I second what memphismom said^. Most decorators would agree. Find fabric/bedding you love and it will have colors in it you like, then select your neutral from that. There is a book, House Beautiful’s Colors For Your Home. It’s a great book, it has over 300 colors that popular/famous decorators have used and love. It has good quality color swatches, the names/numbers of the colors and lots of good pictures of rooms using the colors. It also has comments from these decorators about why they use these colors and why they work.</p>
<p>H and I would argue about color forever. We came up with a solution. Take a dozen choices, pick five and rank via numbers in seperate rooms without sharing with the other party as to which one you like. The one that you agree on numerically is the one. Sometimes you need to narrow it down with a second round, but once you get there…no arguments and no turning back.</p>
<p>Wow, thanks to all for the suggestions.
I will be making another trip to the paint store to check out some of these and to collect a few more chips. I might even spring for the sample size jars of the ‘finalists’.
Our store also now has these very large ‘chips’ maybe 16"X16" of some BM popular shades. It was a madhouse this am and I couldn’t get near them!</p>
<p>I agree that the neutrals have definite undertones that I’ll need to watch for.<br>
DH leans toward the grey/greens me to warmer tones.
Sigh.</p>
<p>srw- thanks for the tip on the house beautiful book, sounds like a great reference, especially since it has the names/numbers in it.</p>
<p>Once you get down to four or five finalists, do buy a package of poster boards and then write the name of the color on the back (we forgot this one time, and we regretted it.) and paint the entire front of the posterboard with the sample color. Once they’re dry, bring them into the room and see how each color feels during different times of the day – some colors work great with sunlight, but then look depressing in the evening. Also be sure and check how it looks next to any furniture wood you have (and plan to keep) – some fight, or just don’t do anything any favors.</p>
<p>My other suggestion, which has paid off in spades over the twenty-one years we’ve lived in this house:
Set up a house paint file/notebook. For each room you paint, start a page with the name of the room (“Master Bedroom/Master Bath”) and the date. Then write down every detail about the paint you use:
Walls: Benjamin Moore “San Mateo Beaches” Flat Eco-Spec No VOC.
Trim - Benjamin Moore “White Heron” OC 57, Natura (No VOC, v high grade) semigloss, Base 1 (latex)
…</p>
<p>For my exterior colors (I have a “Painted Lady” so there’s a lot) I also write down the color mix, since we need to touch-up fish scale or something every couple of years, and we did a lot of custom colors:
Yellow trim: Special #4981 YW 3x1 Bk1 RD 2.5 GY 10, Moorgard Low Lustre Medium Base.</p>
<p>I also keep the paint chips in this same file. </p>
<p>The other fairly brilliant (surprising, for me) decision a few years ago was that every time I painted inside trim, I used the same trim color, rather than picking it anew. Then, when I’m done with a painting project (usually one room a year) I go hunting for trim elsewhere that needs a ding touched up, and voila!</p>
<p>Then DECIDE and stop obsessing. Really. (from one who could go on, and on, and on…)</p>
<p>I also agree with settling on one trim color throughout. BUT: as I mentioned earlier, each trim/neutral has an undertone, so it has influences the wall color decisions. I have, infrequently, felt constrained by our trim color (BM 925), but it does work quite well.</p>