Picking the Perfect Gray Paint {Revere Pewter}

Revere Pewter is a light gray with warm undertones. This classic shade creates a comfortably sophisticated look that soothes and restores.

I've finally found the color I want for my open living areas and hallways, and it's the perfect gray. Woohoo!! But before I tell you which color it is, let's talk gray for a minute. (And if you like gray, don't miss the bottom of this post for a link to the colors I love pairing with it!)

Yes, I know it's the go-to neutral right now. It's sooo trendy, for sure. And I've gone back and forth on whether to stick with beige or switch to gray. I did beige in my old house and liked it just fine. It was Latte by Restoration Hardware.

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It was a great backdrop for my bright red couch and turquoise accents. And our new home came freshly painted in a similarly neutral beige.

It has a little more red than Latte, but it isn't too orangey for me. But, it's flat paint. I have no extra sample for touch-ups, and there's a little girl with sticky fingers running around this house. So I needed to paint and choose a color for my living room, entryway and two hallways.

I finally decided on gray because I really wanted to try something I've never done before. (Although I know everyone else is doing it too.) And if I'm tired of it in two years, I can always go back to beige, or some other color. It's just paint, and I like painting. So there you have it!

Revere Pewter looked a little washed out in this photo because of the morning light.

I finally narrowed the field to four grays. I studied gray paints for hours, searched online, made a long list of possibilities, went to the paint store and stared at countless paint chips.

I finally picked four colors to test: Rockport Gray, Revere Pewter, Grant Beige and Hazy Skies. All by Benjamin Moore. I love their colors, especially their historical ones, and I probably won't ever pick anything else!

I wanted to try Grant Beige because it seemed like a nice greige, a mix of gray and beige. But it ended up being way too beige for what I wanted. I also wanted some greige options because my husband really likes beige and doesn't seem to love gray. But he didn't like it, either. I quickly crossed it off the list and took it down.

I really liked the other three. Hazy Skies and Revere Pewter aren't that different, but Hazy Skies is a touch greener than Pewter. I loved Rockport Gray too, but I knew it would be dark. I just wanted to try it. My husband really loved Rockport Gray, but I think once it's on every wall, it would just be too much.

So, which one did I pick??

Drumroll, please!

Revere Pewter!!

I was leaning toward this color from the start, but I wanted to test it and give a few others a try before I painted it on half my house. I've honestly never been this thorough about choosing a paint color before. I usually just look at the swatch and go, but this time I decided to put more effort into the process.

I'm so glad I did. I now know without a doubt that I love Revere Pewter, and I can't wait to get it on my walls!

But I have to wait a little while, since my husband's birthday is this weekend and we have friends coming to town. I don't want to be in the middle of painting the whole house with company here. Yeah, that might be messy.

I also have a bit of a domino effect going on with the living room. I'm definitely doing a board and batten treatment on the walls, so I've got to figure out exactly where that goes.

I also want to paint the top gray and the bottom white before I put up the boards and battens. That way I'm not doing nearly as much trim painting as I would if I did it afterward. I'm also toying with the idea of some built-ins in the living room.

So I need to sort that out before I do the board and batten. See what I mean about a domino effect? I have to do it all at once, or at least quickly, since each part affects the others. Whew, just writing it all out makes me tired.

Back to picking paint. I got a little sidetracked and overwhelmed there. Ha!

I highly recommend taking the time to pick your top favorite paint colors, getting samples and painting them on poster board. I used poster board from Walmart and sample paints from Lowe's tinted to the Benjamin Moore colors. You want the color on the wall where you'll be painting. You can always paint directly on the wall for an even better idea, but I wanted to be able to take these down and move them around the house. Check them at different times of day, when the light changes in the room.

I also moved these posters to the hallways, where there's little to no direct sunlight. I left a white border around each color on purpose, to neutralize it. I didn't want the new color sitting right next to the original wall color.

Come see how my living room looks with Revere Pewter! I LOVE it!!

Now, while we're here... let's look at some rooms with Revere Pewter. I can't wait to have this on my walls!

Since I painted my whole living room area Revere Pewter, I've fallen even more in love with the color.

Here are some images from that living room over the years: