Banishing beige

We all know it, that pale, sickly shade of yellow-y beige that many have lovingly dubbed "builder's beige."  All of the transitional spaces in our home are were this color, perhaps since there is so much space that repainting it would be a big undertaking.  As part of our plan to have all painting projects completed by Thanksgiving we decided to tackle the beige in the downstairs a few weeks ago.  I wanted yet another shade of gray but couldn't decide exactly one and was nervous about just choosing one since so much space would be committed to this color (our hallways are like one big Mobius strip).  Enter the swatches:

To see how it would look next to the greenish kitchen walls

Checking to coordination with the darker gray already in the hallway

Under the silver and white frames in the gallery

In the mudroom with the darker wood console table

Fairly quickly both hubs and I chose the lighter shade for the hallways and the darker one for the mudroom.  This was a little surprising as I was planning on just choosing one color, but it has definitely worked out having two shades.  The wonderful thing about Martha Stewart's paint collection is that she has handy little symbols to make sure that the colors coordinate, so our home still feels cohesive.  Observe!

Underneath the fun mirror I painted with chalkboard paint

Looking snazzy with the trellis rug

Going moody in the mudroom

Looks alright with the kitchen green too!

So goodbye, downstairs builder's beige, catch you on the second floor!