Hi Beekeeperswife,

Hope we can help! It can be so stressful picking paint colors.

I just pulled out my BM color deck to look at your colors. I would choose another shade off that same color card for your foyer. Either sidewalk gray, tundra or even dior gray. I would get a sample of each and try them out. If your foyer is really bright, the dior might look perfect.

My SIL is a interior designer and she always uses colors off one card to make rooms blend. Also, I would not choose another similar intensity gray(sweatshirt) as it looks like you couldn't make up your mind which gray to choose. This is what my SIL told me when I choose two similar greens in my house.

It will look beautiful!

Echoing what dawnp said, I wouldn't choose a color too close to the gray you have already used. I don't have a BM fandeck, but explore the possibilities on the same strip, and consider the lighting. Try a sample area on the wall or on a piece of large posterboard.

How about black? That could be really dramatic. Or use the gray as the base color and stencil over it with the brown to get a wallpaper effect.

Today at lunch I went to see my buddy at the BM store. I don't want to use the Dior Gray in the foyer because despite it being a really nice color, it really reads Purple to me in that space. So, I went to the continuation strip, and the next darker color is "days end" 2133-30, and I asked about mixing it at 50%. He looked up the formula and said that this color does have only a very very small amount of magenta in it. So we won't know if it would work or not without actually mixing it up.

But then we got out the fan deck to look for a color that would compliment the Pigeon Gray, not look like I'm trying to match it. We looked at this one and that one "too blue, too purple" then we found "smoke gray" 2120-40, similar in tone to the dior gray, but less purple. It looks like it will work next to the chocolate brown too.

If you have a fan deck, check it out and let me know what you think.

Honestly I think that it may go purpley on you too. I'm not at home w/ my fan decks but looking at it on the monitor though.

I think that this is one of those situations where if you see the color that you think is 'it' you may want to take it down a notch. Once the color is on all 4 walls it's going to reflect any tones back on each wall and potentially intensify. Tricky situation.

Along the same saturation range but less purpley or bluey I saw Heather Gray 2139-40 and Storm Cloud Gray 2140-40. It looks like Storm Cloud Gray, is getting close to some brown ranges too.

Twilight Gray 2137-40 is also pretty.

2 tips: Hold that green color of your chairs next to the chip to see what colors it draws out of the chip. Sometimes you see big things that you never noticed before just looking at only the chip and no other color around it. It can take on a totally differnt color.

Second: Look at the neighboring color strips and cards around the color strip that you're looking at. What colors are they leaning towards? Do you like what you see? The strip that you are looking at may well have varying intensities of those colors.

ttodd, you are awesome. I'm sure I must have those other color strips at home. Soon, I will have an entire fan deck of my own, Just need to attach them together. I will look at the smoke gray when I get home next to the chair, I did just hold it next to a green 3M strip at my desk and I can see the purple in the Dior, but not in the smoke gray.

If you can look when you get home and tell me what you see IRL that would be great.

ttodd, just wanted to let you know, I don't have those paint chips at home that you recommended. But, when I look at the BM Color Viewer, I see that Heather Gray and Storm Cloud Gray are both on strips with colors with the word "green" in them. eeek, that's what I'm trying to escape from. I wish I could trust the color viewer tool more, but since I have a real sample of the Pigeon gray in front of me and it looks violet on my monitor, I'm not sure what those other 2 colors look like.

I do find the Desert Twilight to be of interest that you mentioned.

What do you think of Texas Leather AC3? Wonder if that would work. Any opinion?

Thanks, Bee

Not so wild about the colors when I looked at the chhips IRL.

Currently I'm looking at Whitestone 2134-60 (1 strip over from Pigeon Gray) and Bunny Gray (2124-50) and Thundercloud Gray (2124-40). BG is looking a little pasteley to me though.

Colorstrip 1611 from the Classic Colors deck is very similar to the Pigeon Gray strip less a bit of purple tone. Really pretty colors there.

Smoke Embers 1466 is way warmer, still gray and the colors at the bottom of the strip seem to be going cool taupe/ brown.

thanks ttodd, I guess I'll visit my bf at the bm store again today. He usually greets me with his hands on hips and one raised eyebrow.

There are a couple of colors I want to pull in addition to those you listed, I want to see IRL Granite AF-660, Fusion AF-675, Winter Gates AC30, and Storm AF700, and HC166 Kendall Charcoal.

Here's a question you may or may not know the answer to, but since BM's samples run around $7 a pop, can I get these made at Lowes? I know their samples are much less.

Call Lowes and see if they carry the BM formulas. It's worth a shot. I stopped colormatching a few yrs. ago. I want the exct color and so many places seem to carry the formulas of other manufacturers now.

Kendall Charcoal is very pretty. I have a qt. of the lighter shade on the strip Chelsea Gray from yrs. back.

How pretty is Winter Gates?!

I've yet to actually see any of the AF colors!

Do you want to go lighter, darker or the same as Pigeon Gray?

I want to go darker! Lots of light in the 2 story foyer. I just have to keep in mind the dark chocolate dining room that is right there off of the foyer.

I bet Lowes can make up the samples, I called yesterday to really test them...remember the Pittsburgh Paint Pewter Mug at 1/2 strength idea? I was asking if they thought they could do that, she said she could try. (They have the forumla for their sample size) So if they have that formula, I'm sure they have BM, since BM has formulas in their computer for others, and so does Sears (found that out when I was looking for the MS Mercury Glass,but they only had the Lowes version)

So what would happen if you mixed the Chocolate Brown and the Pigeon Grey together as an experiment? Then try lightening it up with some white, try doubling the grey and half the chocolate, etc. Just be sure you measure and write down each time, so you know what your final mix is.

Otherwise, I would be inclined to do something dramatic in the foyer, especially if you have a lot of light. A warmer deep purple, or perhaps an olive green with a brown undertone.

Some of this, of course, depends on your flooring and furniture that will live in the space.