Choosing paint

One of our 4-H parents is a house painter. (:::waving "Hi" to Peter::::) Interior room painting, although I suppose he might do exteriors too. He is going to paint some rooms in my house for me. I am trying to decide on what color to have my living room, entryway, and hall painted. They are pretty much all one big open room (think: raised ranch) and so whatever color I choose must work in my open living room which has a large bay window, as well as my large entry way walls, and my dark narrow hallway too.

I thought I wanted a purple-ish color since my living room furniture is cream/off-white with purples and greens. So I brought home every purple paint chip in the store and finally found one that wasn't too purple or too pastel-y. Sam agreed to it and picked up a quart of it for me to try on the walls in the various areas. It is so the wrong color! All I could think while I was painting it was "fake grape". You know, the grape Kool-aid that really doesn't taste like grape, but tastes like, well, purple?

So it's back to the drawingboa.., er, paint chip store. A few more misses and I'll have a whole lot of small cans of paint with blocks of paint on the walls to match!