The Confusion of Paint

It's time to choose interior paint colors. After trips to Benjamin Moore and Sherwin Williams, I am completely convinced that I am thoroughly confused. I'll try to explain. Our kitchen cabinets are going to be painted white by our cabinet maker, Morrison Custom Cabinets. The cabinet color is very important for us and we want to make sure we get just the right shade of white. The only problem with that is there are 437 different whites to choose from. Well maybe not 437, but certainly enough to make our decision more difficult. Back to Houzz photos to help us with this decision.

We've taken it from 437 whites to just a few. We painted four pieces of scrap trim different whites. I assure you each white does have its own shade. It came down to SW Pure White and BM Simply White. It looks like it may be BM Simply White.

My 7 year old ended up with "only" four samples for her bedroom. Considering she left the paint store with about 20 paint sample cards, I thought she did good. After some deep thought, she chose SW Spa (far left).

Rebecca really likes the purple for her bath. I tried to convince her we could use the purple color of the drywall and save some money on paint. She said the purple color on the drywall was just to dark. Well, I tried.

Sarah did a little better with 3 choices for her bedroom. She chose SW Charming Pink (middle).

Marilyn's Dress by Benjamin Moore is on the left and is one of my favorites for any room. We are going to use it for the master bedroom and maybe the master bath. SW Reflection is on the right and will probably be the color we use for most of the downstairs. 

After weeks of research - hours and hours in paint stores - dozens of questions - 33 samples of paint -  several hundred dollars in paint samples and supplies - we finally have some colors.
Now we have to choose which "kind" of paint we want. Between Benjamin Moore and Sherwin Williams, our choices are; Advance, Ben, Natura, Regal Select, Aura, Ovation, SuperPaint, Emerald, Duration, Cashmere, Harmony, ProClassic, Paint Shield, Eco Select, Eminence and more...
Once that decision is made we will have to decide on the sheen. The choices are flat, matte, eggshell, satin, low lustre, pearl, semi gloss, medium lustre, gloss, high gloss, velvet and more...
Then which type of paint -  Acrlic, Latex, Oil Based, Water Based and more...

Rebecca, probably like most of you at this point, had heard enough about paint and moved outside to prepare her family a dirt topped sand pizza. Looks pretty good.