We See A Black Door and We Want To Paint It Red

As we have probably mentioned before, K. and I are first time homebuyers. And as such, we have both spent the past decades living in lots of apartments with white walls. Yes, it's true that some of these apartments had "eggshell" walls or "cream" walls, but none of them had any color on any of the walls at all. So one of the things that we are most excited about is getting to paint our walls many different colors. So we have been picking up swatches of colors at various places over the past few days and yesterday we went to our friendly neighborhood Lowe's to get a few paint samples for the downstairs room. Here is what we got:



Now, we know perfectly well that our downfall is going to be the temptation to do bright bold colors that look good after all of these years in white apartments but which may not actually be great choices -- and conveniently will be that much harder to paint over. And yet we are embracing these bright colors despite our knowledge much as Anakin embraced the dark side.

As of right now, here is what we think of the colors. but we would love to hear your opinions, dear readers, if you want to share them with us.

"Heirloom Red", Living Room
D: It's awfully dark in certain lights, but I think this is a good thing. I especially like the way it makes the woodwork look so light, as opposed to other paint colors which make it look so dark. If we are going to go for a dark color, I like it, even if it is a little...er...blood-like.
K: I think this red is too purply, and while I don't gravitate to the more Tomato-ey reds as paint chips, I think they might go better with our warm-toned woodwork.

"Delta Clay" (orange), Dining Room
D: In some lights, I really like it. In other lights, I am much less enthusiastic, and it is too orangish. I don't think I would like a yellower shade would be good, but i also don't want to go browner...
K: The orange was my cockamamie idea, well actually I said I wanted russet, but I'm just not convinced. This orange is dark enough that people won't start calling me Julius, but I'd like to see something browner or lighter.

"Leather Satchel" (beige), Den
D: It came out darker than either the swatch or the little bit of paint he put on the can. While I don't dislike the color, right now I think we should go lighter, partly to make the woodwork stand out more.
K: While this looks very close to what I had in my mind, it just looks too putty. I wanted more suede, camelhair. In general, I think we probably should go lighter to start and intensify the color later if we want. I can't tell how much of my difficulties with this is first-timeritis. What is the right way to select paint? Is it the way we painted the test spots (shoddily) that is glitching my eye? Do I want to change the finish (to something shinier)? Is it where we chose to place the test spots? Will it be better or worse on the whole wall? I'm very insecure of my ability to do this. My visions look lovely in my mind, and I usually find confirmation of my instincts in shelter magazines. But I have a lousy track record, when I was in high school, my parents let me paint my room. I selected the most tasteful Dusty Rose with a lovely Federal Grey-Blue for the trim -- and, you can guess what happen, it turned out terrible. Bright pink and blue, like a nursery for fraternal twins. I didn't mind it at the time (much like my gold lame prom dress), but boy do I wince now. I don't want to make those mistakes again. Sigh. Maybe we could just look at a few more subdued samples....