Graceful Grey

The living room is painted! I can't even believe it myself.
I'm not sure that I LOVE the color but it was cheap (Sherwin sale!) and I think it will look really good once the floors are re-done. Of course its in the grey family... didn't you know grey is the new beige(<--- my favorite saying).
After several test swatches on the walls I finally settled on "Graceful Grey" but it was a Home Depot color so I took it to Sherwin to be color matched. As I handed the paint mixing man my color swatch he immediately recognized me from my last paint fiasco and asked "hey how did that blue work out for you?" Embarrassing. It took quite a few tries and we couldn't quite crack the Home Depot paint code so the paint we ended up with was pretty different from "Graceful" but it worked.

Naya the "graceful grey" helping me paint.

Painting and enjoying a little Real Housewives of NY...

The section with the paint swatches on it pops out from the wall a bit- in the attached twin it is exposed brick. I'd love to open this up but we aren't quite brave enough so we are going to paint it a darker color and do something like this:

Or this great faux fireplace/bookshelf:

This house really messes with me- I have no idea how to decorate with such dark trim but I can't bring myself to paint it. Any suggestions on how to work with dark trim- please send them my way!!