Help me pick some paint colors!!! PLEASE!

[larig]

DH and I are getting our house ready to rent (we're moving x-country and want to keep our house, because we plan to retire to Seattle, and feel it's a good investment given our purchase price, etc.) Anyway, our house is small, but charming, and living in seattle we have odd light (house faces south). We have very bold colors in our house right now, and want to neutralize things for potential renters.

I'm thinking about white trim (simply white in Benj Moore? or whatever YHL uses on their trim?) and some neutral and warm (but not reading yellow) creamy/beige/neutral like these (http://www.houzz.com/beige-walls-white-trim). I want there to be enough contrast that it looks intentional. We have wood doors that are light-ish birch and pretty typical oak hardwood floors.

Also, what's your favorite trim paint? Was thinking about splurging for $$ BM Advantage paint for this? (only if it's worth it!) Is BM worth it generally?

What's your favorite paint brand?

Favorite whites/neutrals?

Thanks!!!!

[teo]

I love, love, love BM paint. We have had great luck with Aura satin for our trim (over old BM oil-based Satin Impervo paint). Didn't find the Advantage enough different to be worth the cost. We've had bad experiences with water-based Satin Impervo on trim, so I'd avoid that--the Aura is much easier to get a clean finish with, especially if you are doing the painting yourselves.

Nothing is neutral in our house, though, so no help there! Our trim is Acadia White, but it's pretty creamy as whites go (though I adore it). The old owner of our house did paint several rooms off of a BM color stick, though, using a richer shade in each room---that effect is beautiful if you can see multiple rooms at once, IMO.

[jenfromnj]

We've used lots of BM and always had good luck with it. For our neutrals, we've tended toward using Restoration Hardware Paint--I've used most (4 of 5 shades) of the Flax Collection in different rooms at some point:

http://www.restorationhardware.com/catalog/product/product.jsp?productId=prod1161242&categoryId=cat1017001

[twowhat?]

Sherwin Williams Kilim beige is a fabulous color to use that goes with everything. Google it and you'll see that lots of interior decorators and home stagers use it because it's virtually the perfect neutral - no yellow or green or red undertones. If anything it maybe has the tiniest bit of grey undertone. The painting company we used highly recommended it as well. We used it in several rooms to stage our home (master, guest bath, kitchen) and in every room it looked fabulous despite the very different lighting in each room. After getting the rooms painted, both DH and I remarked "wish we had done this sooner so we could enjoy the color!" It's a light/medium color that provides enough contrast for white trim (which is what we had). I really loved it. And if you want to mix it up, just pick a shade darker or lighter on the same color stick.

[Tondi G]

Had the opportunity to use some BM no and low voc paint recently and didn't love it. We have had pretty good luck with Behr paint from Home Depot. The color we have on our living room walls is called Gobi Desert and it's a really nice neutral creamy khaki-ish color. We bought a big 5 gallon drum of swiss coffee (I think thats the name)... it's is not as bright of a white as their Ultra pure white, for the trim in semi gloss. We bought the wall paint in a "satin" finish.

[SnuggleBuggles]

Our favorite cor we have in the house is Laura Ashley Taupe 2 from Lowes. It's a great neutral.

[Simon]

I would not pay $$ for paint since it may need to be redone after each set of renters and you can't know how long they'll stay/how they'll treat the walls. Hope for the best prepare for the worst. We had white walls in Seattle and it was OK because it was a warmer white.

What about some of the colors on this blog? I think it is a sophisticated palette. She names all the colors in a post. http://www.housetweaking.com/see-my-house/

[Binkandabee]

Sherwin Williams Kilim beige is a fabulous color to use that goes with everything. Google it and you'll see that lots of interior decorators and home stagers use it because it's virtually the perfect neutral - no yellow or green or red undertones. If anything it maybe has the tiniest bit of grey undertone. The painting company we used highly recommended it as well. We used it in several rooms to stage our home (master, guest bath, kitchen) and in every room it looked fabulous despite the very different lighting in each room. After getting the rooms painted, both DH and I remarked "wish we had done this sooner so we could enjoy the color!" It's a light/medium color that provides enough contrast for white trim (which is what we had). I really loved it. And if you want to mix it up, just pick a shade darker or lighter on the same color stick.

This is EXACTLY what I was going to post. We have Kilim beige in our kitchen and living room and Latte in our bedroom. It's just so incredibly neutral and gorgeous.

My mom recently complete renovated my grandmother's house and the interior designer chose kilim beige for the entire house. It was gorgeous!

[flashy09]

Behr Brown Teepee is exactly that color and what i have in my living room.

[scrooks]

This is EXACTLY what I was going to post. We have Kilim beige in our kitchen and living room and Latte in our bedroom. It's just so incredibly neutral and gorgeous.

My mom recently complete renovated my grandmother's house and the interior designer chose kilim beige for the entire house. It was gorgeous!

My inlaws have latte and kilim beige throughout their house. Both great colors!

[larig]

This is great. I'm totally neutral-challenged, and it's overwhelming to be faced with the 140 whites benjamin moore has.

I had thought about the fact that I'll have to repaint after every renter, maybe you're right about keeping the cost down for that reason.

[katydid1971]

I have used lots of different paints and I have to say that I like Behr (at home depot) as well as BM. DD's room is BM and DS's is Behr and both have held up equally well. Sorry I'm not as good with color. I usually have to buy like 10 of those paint sample until I find the color that looks the way I wanted in my head. I am going to look at the SW kilim beige though, good to know. Good luck.

[indigo99]

Sherwin Williams has 30% off for preferred customers until May 7. I don't think that you have to print a coupon or anything, but you might want to call a store and find out for sure. We like SW paint and did use BM Aura in the boys' rooms. I wouldn't say that BM is better though.

[crl]

I would say it can be worth it to get better paint for the better coverage. I used a lot less paint (and consequently spent a lot less time painting) when I used Benjamin Moore Aura compared to using Behr. In fact, I figured the cost was about a wash as I needed fewer coats with the Aura and I saved on my time. Now if you are painting over dark/bright colors, you are probably just as well off priming and then painting and using less expensive paint.

Catherine

[sntm]

ACE hardware is giving one free gallon of paint today - can't remember the brand, but might be worth picking some up, if only for trim or something easy.

[acmom]

We are in the process of looking at paint colors too and our contractor really suggested going with BM and staying away from Behr. He said until recently they used Behr a lot and liked it, but lately have had trouble with it on several jobs (mainly not going on smoothly and looking even) and have gone away from it bc of that. He was wondering if they had changed formula. No personal experience with either paint recently, but figured I would pass along what I was told about the two.

[pinkmomagain]

There is a nice white for trim called Marscapone in BM that we recently used and the girl at the BM kiosk recommended. I'm happy with it.