Gray all over

Hello all! I hope you're having a great week so far.

As I mentioned Monday, we've been desperately searching for a new paint color for our office, after the gray we painted it turned out to be a little too purple for our liking. Thanks for all your suggestions for great grays! We went to three different hardware stores and grabbed up all the samples we could find, then came home and taped them on the wall. We started flinging off any that looked too dark or too purple. And soon, our office floor looked like this:

We found that so many grays, even the ones with blue undertones, took on a purple look in our room (or maybe we're just completely terrified of anything looking remotely purple!). Colors that looked great in another blogger's room, for example, still looked too lilac for us. We tried some colors that were more brown or blue, but those ended up being too dark. And we probably spent close to $20 on those darn 8-ounce samples.

But finally, we found a color we like -- we hope. Can you blame us for still having some trepidation? Those purple walls taunt us and shame us with our paint-selection inadequacy. Okay, that's a little dramatic, but still -- we're apprehensive about picking up the roller again.

We ended up picking Porch Grey by Valspar, marked with the arrow. It's got a tinge of green to it that we hope will keep the room from looking purple and make it more of a neutral gray.

Funny -- the color to the left of it is also Porch Grey, but Home Depot's match of it in Behr paint. It didn't quite match the swatch, so we got another sample at Lowe's (we just like throwing away money, huh??), which we liked better -- more gray than green. 

We also liked Martha Stewart's Winter's Day (left of the Home Depot sample), but it was a little too blue for the office. I'm actually really thinking I want to use it when we repaint the guest room!

Here's a longer shot of all the samples on the wall. Okay, do you all believe me now that the original color is kind of purple, now that you can see all the other colors next to it? Or are we really crazy? :) We've already retaped the room to paint again.

So, we're off to buy paint (again) this afternoon! I'll let you know how the repainting goes. Cross your fingers...