Too Many Choices

I want to paint my house.  I'm not talking about the outside (although that needs painting, too) but the inside.  And not just one room.  All of them.  Okay, I do have few rooms that have already been painted and are not in urgent need of a fresh coat.  But the living/dining room, the hallways, the laundry room, the kids' bathroom, and the game room are still dressed in 15-year-old boring builder beige.  It's definitely time for a change.

After spending too many hours on Pinterest looking for just the right color, I decided to order a fan deck from Benjamin Moore.  That would make the job of picking out coordinating colors for all my rooms easy!  It even says so right on the fan deck: "It allows you to easily and quickly pick the ideal colors for your painting projects." 



Yeah, right.

I've had it for a couple of months now and I am no closer to deciding. There are over a thousand colors on the thing.  I forget the exact number.  It doesn't matter.  There's too many.  I mean, how many shades of beige does the world actually need?  Yes, I know. I said I wanted to get rid of the beige.  But really I want to replace the boring builder beige with a pretty beige.  There's a difference, I swear.  Actually, there are many differences.  Red undertones. Blue undertones. Green or yellow undertones.  There's beige and then there's greige. I find colors I like, but then I hold them up against a piece of furniture or the stair railing and realize that whatever undertone the color possesses does NOT look good with whatever undertone the wood has.  Then I'm back to flipping through the fan deck in search for a color that contains the correct undertone, whatever that might be.

Right now I have several strips spread out with colors I like and think will work. I suspect, though, that some of them I chose simply because of the name. "Sierra hills." I live near the Sierras; that would be a good one!  Or, "sandy brown." I love the beach; that would be good, too!  Of course, I have also pulled out "moccasin" and "blanched almond" and their names aren't quite as exciting, so perhaps I haven't completely lost my mind.  Yet.

The number of choices is simply too overwhelming.  I will confess that I have perhaps crossed the line into absolute insanity a few times, thinking, "Maybe I should order a different fan deck."  Uh, no. Definitely not. More choices will only lead to even more confusion.  If the right color isn't on this fan deck, then it just doesn't exist. Period.

At some point I am going to have to make a decision.  It's either that or resign myself to living for the rest of my life with boring builder beige.  At least that's a fairly easy choice to make.