Dear people who know anything about color:

[bironic]

Acquiring the couch tipped me over from "should really paint the walls" to "time to paint the walls." Everything in here is white, off-white, wood, or gray, which was fine when I didn't think I'd be living here long, but has been getting to me over the past months. So today I picked up a couple of samples: one pale green, one pink. I haven't historically been much of a pink person, but I think the right shade would look good against all the orangey browns.

Well, neither patch looks quite right on the wall, and I can't figure out if I should go lighter or darker -- this place has northern(ish) exposure, so I was thinking darker wouldn't be smart, but this shade is just shouting PINK! so something needs to be done -- or more or less saturated, or other things I can't articulate/conceptualize because I don't have the vocabulary. Is anyone any good at this kind of thing?

This is what it looked like all plain:





Main room, with sample patches:





And over the bed, which is dark brown: