Blue Lament

Josh and I seem to have the WORST trouble picking out colors that do not come from Restoration Hardware. Set at sea in a bevy of choices at Sherwin Williams, Benjamin Moore, Home Depot, or Lowe's, I come home with swatches upon swatches hoping that one will do the trick. When we first moved into our beautiful home, we painted 3 of the rooms right away: master bedroom (Celery), upstairs bathroom (Buttercream), and the office. The office was supposed to be this gorgeous tiffany blue, very subtle and amazing -- well, RH doesn't have a subtle and amazing tiffany blue, so I was left on my own. I chose, Josh bought, we painted. Some of you may remember what I referred to as our pool room. The room actually GLOWED! into the hallway, it was soo blue! The effect was that you were entering an indoor pool, without any water in it. Well, we quickly repainted with the more sedate Sage.
Fast forward to the present. When faced with the choice of what color to paint little Kate's room, once again, RH did not have the perfect option, so I was left to my own devices. I chose a color that SOUNDS demure (Harbor Fog), but when painted above white bead board lost all fogginess and became more harbor. Fortunately, the mistake was not as grave as last time, but it did give Josh and myself NIGHTMARES about our last painting faux pas. One complication was that we were looking at it in the flourescent light of one of Josh's work lights. Once we got the regular bulbs in there and a little sunshine, things looked up. Then, last night, Josh added a little more white to the color before he put on the second coat. The color is more muted, and I know that things will be different when we get all of the furniture, bedding, and curtains inside. I feared that we had another Pool Room on our hands, but we teetered back to the safety of a bright, but not TOO bright, blue. Why, oh why, does not RH have a line of blues that are perfect for MY needs???