11 Aug Grey Paint for the Cottage
When I first started working with a local print shop for Sweet Sanity’s products, I remember the owner telling me to brace myself for grays. You wouldn’t think so, but it is one of the trickiest colors to print and we had many discussions and test runs around our grays. Ironically, gray paint seems to be the same way! Last year I decided the country kitchen of my cottage would be lovely in a true gray. Whatever that really means! It took me all of about 5 minutes into my online research to realize this was not going to be easy. I just wanted someone to tell me the best true gray to use and be done with it! Too bad sweetheart.
A photo on your laptop or phone is never a great representation of any color, and even seeing a wall in someone else’s home may not be the good representation of a paint color. But this is INFINITELY true with gray. Your lighting in your house is what counts, and even in separate rooms of the same house colors will be totally different! So my advice is get as many samples as you can (real paint, not just the chips!) and paint little blotches every where you can. Check them out at night, in the morning sun, in the afternoon… They will change, be disappointing, be surprising, look purple, look blue, look hideous and look amazing. The good news is those little sample cans are great for touch ups or other projects throughout the year. Since I poured over so many interior decorator’s choices, scoured my favorite design blogs and pinned my heart away, thought I would toss into the world my equally useless photos in my light and on my walls!
The Cottage Kitchen: I tested the following Benjamin Moore gray paints. I had high hopes for some like Gray Owl, but in this room it just turned out looking like a tinted white. I thought also I would like Stonington Gray (I thought the name really nailed it) but it almost had a purple tint.
The two that tied were Stone Harbor and Coventry Gray. In the end Coventry Gray in this particular light seemed the TRUEST. The Stone Harbor was lovely but had almost a touch of warmer brown in it. 
Was really pleased with the Coventry Gray once it was up.
It isn’t pushy but enough to show up against the white molding.
Proving it looks different in every light – Hallway in the morning…
Hallway in the afternoon… Luckily I liked both.
Coventry Gray Kitchen
Next up is the condo. If you’ve been following my Instagram you have heard my woes for months about a home disaster from last winter. Water damage did a number on many of the rooms, drywall, floors, etc. So as construction has been underway it seemed like a good time to switch up the paint colors. This living room green has treated me well, but it’s been many years so movin’ on. Alas, more testing…
It occurred to me it would be really nice to just have a few go to colors I use in multiple spots, so I was rooting for Coventry Gray again. But in this very bright room it looked a bit cold and with all the brown toned furniture I think it might clash. Tried a recommendation of a friend called ‘Eagle Rock’ that is a very cool color for the record but not what I am looking at for this room. Seems good old #2 Stone Harbor is pulling ahead. Another reason to keep your samples!
