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New House

The perfect grey

Hi friends!  Today I received 3-D renderings of my new kitchen!  My cabinet guy is going to start making the cabinets soon.  So exciting!  We’ve worked out almost every detail and are just tweaking the oven hood.  I sent him an e-mail this morning that said “I don’t know why I’m so stressed about this oven hood!  I just want it to look exactly how I want it to look.  But I’m not sure exactly how I want it to look.”  Ha!  :)  I’m sure he just loves working with me.  ;)  He has been the best.  SO patient.  Kenny along with my parents and siblings often joke that aside from being decisively indecisive I’m the worst kind of high maintenance because I’m totally high maintenance but don’t think that I’m high maintenance.  
I’m not high maintenance by the way.  
But I am decisively indecisive.  And I am happy about my kitchen!  I will share lots of details at some point for those of you who get as excited about kitchen design as I do.  I mentioned that my cabinets are going to be white and grey so this past week I’ve been searching for the perfect shade of grey for them to be painted.  It has been a lot harder than I thought it would be!  Here are a few pictures from various sites that I’ve pulled inspiration from… 
Love this.  I’m doing something similar in one of my bathrooms and I’m hunting for similar sconces.  Aren’t they fun!?  We are just starting to think/talk about lighting and I have been really anticipating this part of the building process.  I love light fixtures!  They are the perfect accessory to a room and can make or break the look.  Much like a good pair of shoes.  Wouldn’t you agree?  :)

 Love this grey.  And the rest of this color palate!  

Love the way that white farmhouse sink pops against those grey cabinets! 

Here are a few of the samples I’ve narrowed it down to.  It’s interesting how grey looks so grey until you compare it to another grey sample.  Then you immediately see all sorts of greens and blues in the grey.  A lot of these samples don’t look great with the wood floors I’ve picked out so back to the drawing board!  (On the shade of grey or the floors.)  It’s so easy for me to pick out what I like, but making everything come together is a horse of a different color.

A grey horse to be exact.  :)

(Yeah… it’s late.  I’m going to stop there before I hurt myself.)

Do you have a shade of grey you absolutely love?  Do tell!

xoxo, Erin
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22 thoughts on “The perfect grey

  1. In my experience decisions like this totally stress me out but once it’s done, I never even think about all the other options I could have gone with. It just sort of melds into the background of your home. At least it is that way for me.

  2. My favorite gray is my living room wall. Benjamin Moore’s Sleigh Bells. Aside from the perfect name, it’s a light silvery gray. I paired it with purple accent walls and that brings out blue undertones. But if you want a pale gray, I’d recommend. Then you can always think (year round) that your wall is “sleigh bells”.

  3. My favorite gray is my living room wall. Benjamin Moore’s Sleigh Bells. Aside from the perfect name, it’s a light silvery gray. I paired it with purple accent walls and that brings out blue undertones. But if you want a pale gray, I’d recommend. Then you can always think (year round) that your wall is “sleigh bells”.

  4. Yup, Revere Pewter from benjamin moore is a beautiful warm grey. We just painted our downstairs bathroom with it! Chelsea Grey and Metropolis are also nice. They, or Ashley grey will be going into our laundry room. Oh, and the wall sconces are from Restoration Hardware. They are the same sconces in that bathroom that you pinned from our Canadian blogger Decor Happy, just in a different finish (the bathroom with the shower curtain you like). We Canadians know how to decorate ;)

    Wendy, from Vancouver

  5. Hi Erin, check out chriskauffman.blogspot.com also known as Just Beachy. This Canuck has taken her basic builder cabinets and customized them with grey paint. Hope this helps!

    Wendy

  6. Thanks so much for all of the grey paint suggestions! I’m going to check every one of them out!

    Wendy – thank you! You Canadians DO know how to decorate! :) I’m off to check that site right now.

    Anonymous – YES! I’m actually hoping to post my Christmas toys post for 2012 tomorrow. :)

  7. I love your comment “I just want it to look exactly how I want it to look. But I’m not sure exactly how I want it to look.” That is the story of building a house… you can see it all in your head, but you’re not sure as you pick each individual piece if it will come out the way you want it to look. We just finished our basement and I used a grey for my walls that I love, it turned out perfect. It was called “monorail silver” by Kwal’s. It’s lighter than the samples you have (I needed lighter for my basement) but it’s a great grey and would be a good base to start from. Good luck…

  8. Hi Erin! This is my first time commenting and just wanted to let you know I love your blog. Another blog I love is august fields blog. She built her house a couple of years ago and her kitchen cabinets are a gray color.
    Tracy

  9. Erin, we are renovating our kitchen & I was wondering if you had chosen your counter tops yet? I’m totally overwhelmed! My husband informed me (after 10 years!) that we could Reno the kitchen but the cabinet maker could only fit us in now. So I only have a few weeks for design! Coincidence? I think not! My husband knew I would drive myself wild if I had too much time. Love your blog! Love the new house!
    Thanks.

  10. Thanks everyone!

    Anonymous – thanks so much for the Restoration Hardware link! YEA! :)

    Tracy – I’m going to look up August Fields!

    Anonymous #2 – Oh my word! How exciting and stressful all at the same time! I know exactly how you are feeling. :) Ahhh! Countertops! I’m having the hardest time. I want marble but don’t want the maintenance of marble so I’m going with quartz. I’m still undecided on exactly which one. Something that looks like marble – but they bug me because they don’t look like marble. It looks like quartz trying to look like marble. :) I’ll go with something with grey veining or just a basic white quartz on my islands and black quartz on the rest of my counters. Hope that helps! Let me know how your kitchen turns out. I’d LOVE to see before and after pictures! :)

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