"Is there a perfect silver blue gray paint color???"

In a word, no. The paint color you choose is affected by the natural light in the space, the surrounding flooring and lighting, even the furnishings and textiles that it has to live with.

When I wanted to paint the accent wall in my LR red, I wanted a warm, browner red, not a blue or purple red. I kept bringing home color swatches that had those browner tones, and they all looked awful. Not until I tried a bit oooler red did I find the right color. Why? Because the natural light and nature of the space affected the paint color. The end effect was a warmer red tone, but I didn't get there the way I thought I would.

So you certainly can solicit suggestions here, but obviously the perfect color in one space will be all wrong in another. I would just go pull a whole bunch of samples and tape them up on the wall. You will quickly eliminate some, find some others that you have to look at over a couple of days in various lighting, and finally perhaps find a couple that seem to fit. Those are the ones you might want to purchase in a small sample size and then paint a larger sample on a piece of posterboard to hang on the wall. If the current walls have a color, be sure to put some white paper behind the sample so that the silver blue isn't up against the current wall color - it will affect your perception.

Good luck!

BM Metallic Silver is really nice. My husband has it in his den. It's just the perfect combination of blue, gray and silver.

I have SW Sea Salt in the rec room in my basement and it's pretty too but even with great lighting (it's a walk-out) it reads as a grayed aqua.

We painted our walls BM Silver Half Dollar and our trim BM Iced Cube Silver. Silver Half Dollar is a very mercurial paint. At certain times of the day, each wall in the room may appear as a different shade. It's the perfect combination of cool shades of grey and blue. Love it!

Here's a picture I saved of SILVER HALF DOLLAR. Maybe Boerboel can tell us if this is how it really looks.

I just bought a can of BEHR LIGHT FRENCH GRAY to paint my office.

If I don't like the Behr French Gray, I'm going to try BM ARCTIC GRAY, which has more gray in it.

I also love RH PUMICE in Pipdog's house.

I love Donald Kaufman paints, but they are pricey.

Here is a link that might be useful: The perfect silvery blue

After reading the blog -is Donald Kaufman's paints like Ellen Knennon's "full spectrum"?

msrose,

Your picture of Silver Half Dollar is very accurate. Some days, it looks blue and other days it's distinctively grey. (I didn't want anything close to greige)

I don't know how to add pics; otherwise I would share. Sorry.

I have SW Krypton in the master bedroom and love it. It tends more toward an icy blue rather than gray, but I wanted that. White trim looks very nice with it. I considered SW Samovar Silver which has less blue in it, but in the end I decided on the Krypton.

Here's a picture (not my room).

{{!gwi}}

Randita: That is a beautiful color. I looked at Krypton but thought it had too much color. It sure looks wonderful in that room. I went with BM Titamium. Still painting----

BM Metallic Silver in our home office-- very pretty color but looks more blue than I would have wanted especially when the sun is shining.

Here are some pics:

Crescent,
Your office is beautiful. I love your doors with transom windows.

We just put BM Sea Haze in our new master bath and really like it. It looks mostly gray but depending on the lighting, the blueish tones come out. It's more of a midtone than the pastels posted here though, not sure if you need lighter. I have only in-progress pictures, but here it is so you can see the color:

I agree that the Donald Kaufman "DKC-37" which was written up in the New York Times is rapturously beautiful. It isn't so much cold silver as it is a kind of overcast, Atlantic Ocean color: It's soft blue, with gray and green. It really is something, and I found it to be worth the extra price. Very soothing...I never get tired of looking at it. I'll probably use this color for the rest of my life.

Nice color, but do tell more about this fabulous room! The molding is great.

This is a very tricky color and I agree, a lot is going to depend upon the room and its exposure.

@Jeannie01:

No, it's the other way around: Ellen Kennon's paint is like Donald Kaufman's. DK was the first person to define and market full spectrum paints. EK developed her line afterward.

My main hallway is DKC-37. My front door faces south and there is a window on the south of the second floor. But the stairway which rises from the first to second floors extends all the way to the back of the house. It rises and turns the corner to an open gallery that runs along the stair hall on the second floor. This color is remarkable because it looks wonderful in the full glare of south light and in the dark, northen end of the hall, as well.

Even more remarkable is that it is a dead ringer for the only remaining example of any orginal color on the walls of my pre-Civil War house. I was determined to restore the hallway to its original color, no matter what brand was needed. Luckily, because I am big DK fan, it was one in that line.

A few high-end paint stores in big cities may sell DK paints. And they will have the DK sample decks. Buying the decks is an expensive propostion, however (now @$100 or $125, I think; I bought mine over the years in small groups as the line developed, so not so much sticker shock) It would be cheaper to simply order a sample pot of this specific color, if it intrigues you. IIRC, sample pots are $10 or $12 for enough to paint a sample board with a couple of coats. Two coats are necessary with FS paints to get the full effect.

Although I am very keen on FS paint, I have found some people's eyes just don't "see it". Mine do, and though I love all colors, I can easily recognize the difference. I do all my own painting, so I rationalize that the considerable money I save in labor can make up for the higher costs of fancy paints. It's my treat to my color-percepting brain cells. Makes the little devils very happy!

L.

I searched for a long time for this color and settled on RH Pumice. But after painting our living room and several bedrooms this color, the color felt dreary and cold and highlighted the fact that the space did not get a ton of natural light. The color was affecting my mood. After about a year, I painted it a warmer greige. The difference was dramatic.

Just for comparison purposes, here's how my space looks with
a cool gray:

and how much lighter it looks with a warmer gray (some of this is better camera lighting, but as soon as we painted the room, it felt significantly lighter):

Sherwin Williams online 7072 I think the number is.

I've been accused by my family of overdoing blue (Kitchen island is Azul Bahia, perimeter granite is Bros Blue, I collect flo blue china, family room rug is primarily blue, even my sheets are blue - pretty much everything I fall in love with ends up a shade of blue). So, last year I was on the search for the perfect gray. I didn't want it to go blue at all. I wanted a simple gray color to softly fade into the background and allow all my blue accessories to pop. I tried paint pot after paint pot. Most turned purple, some green, and some baby boy blue. Finally, I went to the BM counter and asked for a color that did not have any other color in it. I found Iced Cube Silver. It only has one color added - lamp black. How could I go wrong? White plus black = pure gray - right? I was so excited, I threw caution to the wind and had them mix up five gallons. I rushed home and went to town painting into the wee hours of the night. As I was finishing up the third wall, it was a soft gorgeous gray but in a few places, I noticed it looked a little blue. I attributed it to my fatigue. All my blue accents were out of the room with the exception of the granite in the kitchen on the other side of the greatroom. When I walked downstairs in the bright light of morning (tons of windows), it was most definitely BLUE. At night, there are angles and shadows that are quietly gray. The ceiling looks gray most of the time (walls & ceiling are painted the same - broken up with white crown molding). No one believes the ceiling and walls are the same paint. I've decided to live with the blue walls, it's a pretty, light blue-gray, I'm too tired and have other projects that desperately need my attention. All this to say, if you're looking for a pretty blue-gray, you might like ice cubed silver but then again, depending upon your lighting, it might actually look like a completely different color in your room. Good luck!

OMGosh pipdog, I didn't even recognize that as the same room!

Pipdog, please share the color you used in the second photo. After everything I said in my above post, I can not believe I'm even asking, but that is the 'perfect' warm quiet gray I'm looking for! With my luck, it will probably turn bouncing baby boy blue in my home but I'd LOVE to give it a try!

I just had a swatch of SW Sea Salt on the wall in my south exposure room, and it looks silvery blue to me. SW 6204.

Ha! Gracie, I guess it really is all about the lighting in the room. My new bathroom is painted Sea Salt, and it definitely looks like a very soft seafoam green.

Thanks! The color in the second photo BM Revere Pewter. It's warm and beige-y during the morning light, then grayer as the day moves on. I've been very happy with it.

Pipdog I love your picture with the BM RP I have that in my kitchen and it is awful - looks like dirty clay. Love Love yours