Help please,

I'm wanting to filter rows in columns using the color I select from my color legend. So, ...

I have a row of cells that I have filled with the standard Excel colors from the color palette and used =COLOR in the adjacent column to return Excels number for that color. A color legend, if you will.

I'm wanting to 1.) select cells in 2 adjacent columns then 2.) drag and fill the selected cells with the color I select when I click on one of my legend cells. The rows I'm needing to fill are not consistently adjacent to each other as I may skip several rows before continuing to fill other cells.

I'm only using 46 of the colors that Excel recognizes so my legend is 46 rows deep. The columns with the rows I'm wanting to fill are several hundred rows deep.

My present approach is to click on 1) a colored cell in my legend, 2) select the cell Fill option, and if the color I selected is not shown by Excel (bordered) I then 3) select "More Colors" and so I can see which color I've selected from my legend. 4) I then click "OK" and my selection is shown in Fill icon. 5) I then select the cells I want to fill with that color and 6) while they're bordered select the color from Fill icon to fill the cells. This works fine as I then have a SUMIF function to add my selected cells. BUT, 6 steps takes too long!

Is there a way to reduce these 6 steps above down the my preferred 2 steps?

Thank you for your help,
Keyrookie