Alright. You spoke. I listened; well sorta. :] I mean, most of you didn’t come out and just tell me, ’cause maybe you’re shy or embarrassed or something. However,  I get so much mail about this one topic.

via Are these not the most glorious colors ever?

And… based on what you guys are reading. And I can SEE what you’re reading… hehehe.

the number one interior decorating dilemma is…

[drum roll~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~]

P A I N T

And to tell you the truth, me too… me too… However, I’ve been looking at paint and specifying it for over 25 years— hundreds of times. And putting colors together happens to be a God-given gift for which I’m grateful.

So, what I’m going to do is put together groupings of the “20 {best} shades of…”

I’ve already started working on it and it’s going to be a lot of fun, informative and hopefully will make your lives a whole helluva lot easier! [painting-wise, that is] :]

Ya see… here is the problem… There is just way too much of this going on…

and this…

and this……………………………

It’s not that I don’t want you to test before diving in.

You MUST TEST!

But, not like this!  [to find out How to test your paint colors, please read about it here.]

And one more thing, while I have your attention. :]

Can some of you please lighten up a bit? And I don’t mean adding more white pigment to your color!

I’m seeing an awful lot of we had this mixed at 50%, 75%… on and on…

What the hey?

Folks. listen. please. This isn’t an absolute and yes, there are some times when this might be a good thing and God only knows I’ve mixed 5 colors together for my former home to come up with the “perfect” warm, pale celery green for my dark, north-facing den.

However.

With Benjamin Moore alone, we are talking over 3,500 colors!

The other lines are all smaller, but lets add in Sherwin Williams, Pratt and Lambert, Behr, Farrow and Ball and now, we easily have over 6,000 colors. That’s not enough to choose from?

No. It’s the opposite. There’s just too damned much choice!

Sorry for the lecture, but really, it’s only to make some of you realize that it really IS just paint. And it’s going to be fickle and some colors are going to read a little different from what you thought and ya know what? The earth isn’t going to come to an end. Not because your undertones are reading a bit blue/green/yellow/purple/red… whatevs.

However… my goal is to narrow down the field for you as I did with the most popular post by far on the laurel home blog— 20 {great} shades of white paint. 

In some cases, the color might be difficult to classify exactly. For instance, is it orange or yellow or gold or peach or red? Maybe it straddles two worlds.

I often find those to be the most beautiful and interesting colors of them all.

I’m also going to include some dark horses that no one [or almost no one else talks about.]

To be continued…

xo,