I love looking at photos of rooms with perfectly selected paint colors...because I'm not sure if I have ever selected a perfect paint color.

In high school, I selected a bold pink to go along with the burgundy carpeting in my bedroom. I insisted it would look good, and while the colors didn't "clash" like my mom had suspected, my room kind of looked like Valentine's day had thrown up everywhere. And because my room was in the basement, the dark pink made my room feel cave-like.

Fast forward to my senior year of college when my parents remodeled the basement to give me an apartment so I wouldn't live on campus. I had since realized that the pink made my room feel cave-like and the maroon carpeting had been on a "it's gotta be replaced" list since we moved into the house. I had my dad paint the two larger walls in my room stark white, leaving two smaller pink walls because I kind of hated to have them covered up since he worked so hard on them in the first place.

This was a definite improvement and I still adore the laminate I selected (although if $$ hadn't been an issue, I would've went hardwood, hands-down). 

But was the white....too white?

January 2014 I moved into my townhouse rental, complete with beige walls. I was over the stark-white walls in my old bedroom and began to overestimate how much I would like the beige walls. 

After all, beige fit into my color scheme... 

But then everything felt very beige.

Now I've decided that a new paint color might reign in my heart for my living room: gray.

How has it taken me this long to realize how absolutely beautiful gray is?

But alas, my house is a rental and I am not going to be painting the walls. I have to get permission to do so, which would be a hassle. And since my house is so open, I couldn't just paint one room. I'd have to paint the living, dining, kitchen, stairwell, hall....

So perhaps I should let myself be inspired by other beige homes.

Although the majority of houses seem to be going gray (a search for beige living room brings up a couple articles about "better than beige!" or "how to change beige to gray!") I will be keeping it beige. 

And lusting over gray.