Also, I think this is…

Also, I think this is the color I secretly want to paint our family room. Or a slightly darker shade of it, since this is maybe a bit bright if you don't live on the beach. Hmm. Can I use rich cool colors on all the walls of the first floor, and then unify the design with off-white (and maybe grey) fabrics and dark woods?

We'll need to make paint decisions within the month, so expect more of this. I'm still thinking about my previous color plans.

But I'm also trying to factor in the fact that Kev and I still love the clay quality of the Farrow & Ball paint; it has a soft glow to it, I swear, and we're still thinking about just using it for the whole first floor, at least. It's more expensive than the Benjamin Moore we'd budgeted for (since our contractor doesn't get a massive discount on F&B the way she does on BM), but the F&B people claim that it only needs two coats, because of the clay composition, which would help a lot with price. And we're definitely using their Chinese Blue in the front parlor / music room, because I just love the color. But it's a very limited color palette overall. (Anyone have any experience with this paint? Can I trust their only-two-coats claim?)

Maybe their Drawing Room Blue would be reasonably close to the picture above? We need to go get more paint samples and put them up on big boards, I think. I love the way it looks in this picture, and we do have lots of huge windows, though we would be leaving the frames medium-wood, I think, rather than painting them white.

(Thought this was funny -- a fictional study for Hemingway in Drawing Room Blue. Also probably closer to how our room would look, with more dark wood than white.

If this is the color of the kitchen cabinets (BM Buckland Blue), along with some dark quartersawn oak on the island, what should I do on the kitchen walls (which you won't see much of, but a bit, up at the top? Keep in mind that we'll have open shelving (probably stainless), with glass and off-white and white (and maybe some cobalt) dishes there too. With a anaglypta backsplash below, painted in a combination of Buckland Blue and grey-silver. Should those walls be white? Light grey? Dark grey? Something else entirely??? (And when it turns right and goes to the huge canvas of the mudroom / stairway walls, do I stay with the same color, or change it?)

And would that hypothetical wall color flow reasonably well into the Drawing Room Blue? There's a 7 ft. opening between the kitchen and family room. I mean, drawing room. :-)

If we're sticking to F&B, then they don't have a violet for the dining room (between parlor and family room). Maybe a green? I like this room, in Curlish Green. I also kind of love this Blue Green room. But would green be good, between two blues, or would it be smarter to do an off-white or grey?

Color is complicated!!!