paint colors

I never knew that finding a pale grey/gray color was so difficult.  A total of 14 paint samples have gone on our living room wall.  NONE are working.  They either have yellow, green, blue, brown or purple undertones.  I believe now that it probably has more to do with our lovely brown carpet and brown couches - but I still cant seem to pick a color.  Its a small room that is open to our kitchen that is grey/white/black so I wanted to paint the walls in something that would be a neutral color that would blend to the kitchen.  Between elephant skin, rain water, grey skies, sterling, pewter- etc etc its just not working so the room that should be so easy to complete - has still a lot of work to be done.
I have considered just painting it white again...afterall picking a white paint cant be THIS difficult!