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abbybeagle

Edgecomb gray is too purple, what next?

abbybeagle
11 years ago

I finally took a leap and picked BM Edgecomb Gray for our family room remodel. It looked fine when wet, although it soaked up more light than I would have liked. Now though it has dried and looks too purple, kind of mauve, in the shadows. We have LED lights in the room that I think cast a bit of a pink tone. At the brightest part of the day the paint looks fine- more greige, but when the sun goes behind a cloud it's purple again.

The fireplace has a glass tile surround with green, amber and blue tiles. The gray, when looking how it's supposed to look really shows off the green which I like but it's not behaving most of the time. I'm afraid of grays now and am wondering if I should just go with a white and be done. This color doesn't really play nicely with the colors in the rest of the house either. I have BM Cream Fleece on the adjoining bathroom walls and it is more tan gray. Maybe try that? I have 3 other rooms to pick colors for and paint so I can't waste a lot of time on this room. I'm feeling pretty overwhelmed! Thanks for reading and helping in any way!

Comments (18)

  • jmc01
    11 years ago

    Before you go the route of repainting, try different LED bulbs. They come with different light hues. New bulbs solved our "wrong paint color" problems.

  • susanlynn2012
    11 years ago

    Abbybeagle, I agree with jmc01 to try different light bulbs. Light bulbs also solved my bedroom paint color that I now like.

    Also can you post a picture of your bathrooms since I have been wanting to see more rooms with BM Cream Fleece in it.

  • susanlynn2012
    11 years ago

    Pics of Gray shades discussed above in the link I provided as I did a search to see what the colors discussed looked like.

    Here is a link that might be useful: Pics of Gray shades of paint discussed above

  • susanlynn2012
    11 years ago

    P.S. On my monitor, I do not see the purple cast and the Edgecomb Gray looks like gray.

  • abbybeagle
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    Hi. Thanks for all the advice!
    We don't want to change the LED bulbs- these were just bought, are pretty expensive and are supposed to last for a very very long time. They were fine before the paint. I have a really hard time getting a picture of it when it is looking purple, the camera seems to correct. I'm thinking that I need to just not go gray and find something else. I'm thinking that the grays might fight with the floor color too much? This room gets the least light in the house because of the screen porch right outside and it's the room we spend the most time in, especially during rainy dark winter time. We'd kind of like to keep it on the lighter side.
    This is a picture with Cream Fleece on the left. It's a small bathroom so really hard to get very much in the picture. The color on the right is BM Harvest Bronze which picks up the shots of color in the Crema Marfil vanity top. We just have the wall behind the vanity and toilet in Harvest Bronze and the other three walls in Cream Fleece.

  • susanlynn2012
    11 years ago

    Thank you abbybeagle for the picture! The BM Cream Fleece may look nice in my powder room.

    Why don't you try BM Sand White on the walls or BM Muslin or even the BM Cream Fleece as these are the three colors I was considering for my bathroom and they are all so much alike and so neutral without being too gray or too yellow. I used BM Bone White in my office which is a perfect match for BM Natural Wicker and it is nice and neutral and warm so maybe you would like to try that paint color out also.

    I feel with your golden oak floors, you need a warmer color on the wall.

  • abbybeagle
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    The color is chosen! I decided to go more cream and stayed away from Benjamin Moore, fearing they would be too yellow as I have heard they can be. I ended up picking up every single paint chip that looked creamish at Lowes and Home Depot. This is Valspar Kabuki Clay. It's so much better, we actually want to be in our newly remodeled family room! No mauve!

    Thanks all for your great advice!

  • susanlynn2012
    11 years ago

    Abbybeagle, I love the new wall color that is happy, creamy and looks great with your floors. A perfect color for the room. I am so happy for you.

  • francoise47
    11 years ago

    Beautiful!
    I'm glad you found a color you love
    that makes you want to be in the room.
    Thanks for sharing the photo.
    Be sure to post a photo of the finished and furnished room.

  • angel411
    11 years ago

    So glad you found a color that you love! It looks great in your room.

    I just wanted to add to the thread in case someone is googling Edgecomb Gray- the same thing happened in our new build. When we first painted I saw a pink tint and was freaking out! But as soon as we moved all of our stuff in, the pink undertone disappeared and it is a beautiful, soothing color. Just the perfect mix of gray and khaki. And it looks great in all lighting as we have it throughout our entire house.

  • slflaherty
    11 years ago

    I see that you've solved your problem by choosing another colour, I just wanted to say that we had the same problem with BM Abalone. It looked VERY purple and we didn't really like it at first. We even thought about changing the colour, but had just spent $2000 for a painter to paint the entire main part of our house, so we decided to live with it for a bit. After we got the furniture back into the rooms, hung some curtains and got artwork on the walls, we loved the colour. I read that yellow tones tend to pull out purple tones and when we were looking at just the walls and the wood floors together the paint looked mauve, but as soon as we started adding other tones to the room, it went back to being a beautiful gray.

  • abbybeagle
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    This is the before. We covered the fireplace brick with sheetrock, replaced the log burning insert with a gas insert ( in our area we are not allowed to burn wood on Spare the Air Days, so whenever you want a fire it's pretty much against the law). We removed the wet bar that was just in the way and changed out the awful carpet that attracted mud from the backyard (from the beagle) with a wood floor that matches the rest of th house. We removed the wood paneling and changed the patio door too. Oh and there were no overhead lights before, the recessed lighting is new. And by we I mean the contractor's crew. I just get to do the painting. We don't like the ceiling beams but removing them would also mean removing the popcorn, asbestos probably, ceiling. The contractor was game but as we have a friend who was dying of cancer from work related asbestos exposure we were not interested in stirring it up and risking someone's life.

  • abbybeagle
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    And the after, we are still waiting for the sun to show itself this morning so it's a little darker than usual.

  • lolauren
    11 years ago

    That transformation is beautiful!

  • ratherbesewing
    11 years ago

    Abbybeagle: Beautiful transformation! I have a question about your fireplace. Did the contractor really just cover over all the brick with sheetrock? I am considering this and thought the brick/stone would be removed. Thanks.

  • abbybeagle
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    Ratherbesewing- thanks! He did just cover it. It turned out that it was part of the structure so if he had removed it we would have opened up the whole chimney. He had to remove the old wood burning insert and look inside to find out the structure. Here is a during picture. They removed the brick from the hearth and a 1 brick wide "column" that was on each side.

  • abbybeagle
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    Here they just put the sheetrock over the brick, leaving an open area for the fireplace surround.