To Paint or Not to Paint?

For over three decades I've lived in white-walled rentals where the rental agreement includes things like: don't even think about painting these stark white walls.  

I'm beginning to realize how simple the days were when we just learned to live with rental 'design' - blue indoor/outdoor carpeting with concrete for padding, bright orange Formica kitchen counters, gold fridges, blue bathtubs and toilets and boring walls.  And now that I'm free to paint my walls, I find myself paralyzed with too many choices.

Here are the paint chips I've collected along the way.  I now know why paint chip collections have evolved into craft projects and artwork.

I'm beginning to find it hard to believe that the DIYers in Blogland are finding really cool looking free furniture and they just happen to already have the perfect color of paint in the garage and the project only cost them $3.42 because they only had to buy one extra knob to complete the collection they already had - and fortunately the knob was on sale.  All I want to do is paint the living room and I've already spent a small fortune on paint samples!

Many of these samples have been designer-friend and art-friend approved.  In the paint store the colors look amazing with my itty bitty carpet sample, but they mysteriously morph when 'painted' on my walls.  Well, what do you think?  Should we paint or not?  I don't dare ask if I should keep looking.  Oh, and just to remind you, here's an idea of the palette I'm working towards.