How not to pick a blue paint

A few weeks ago we were wrapping up the painting of our house, and I got a wild notion to paint the laundry room/mud room a lovely robin's egg blue.  After much debating, I decided on a paint chip, and had the store mix me up a gallon.

However, I completely neglected a cardinal rule for blue paints...always get a sample first!
Yes, it may be the perfect color on the chip, but blue on a wall morphs somehow into the most hideous version of itself on the walls.

When I first opened up the paint can, I was a bit worried, but thought it would be okay once I got it on the walls...WRONG.  It brightened even more, and became an electric blue I never wanted.  It was like a sunny day at the ocean.  Not quite the egg shell blue I was hoping for.

I painted one coat along the walls, and it just got worse.  Even Mr. Pickup and our contractor commented on how bright it was...not good.

So, I tried to tone the paint down by adding some of the grey color from the rest of the house.  I'd used about a 1/3 of the paint for the first coat, and added almost that much of the grey/beige.

As I started painting the second coat, I was afraid I'd put in too much of the other paint.

However, as it dried and brightened, it mellowed into a lovely shade of robin's egg blue.

The moral of the story?  Find your perfect blue, then go down about 2 shades into the "greys" of that tone, and you'll have it just about right.