Thanks @guest4 ! I appreciate the help.
I was actually able to figure out how to get swatches showing using all Shopify admin/theme customizer controls, no custom code. I created a variant metafield called “Color”, and then enabled the theme to use the swatch display for the Color filter. I had been thinking this would only apply to the Product Color Option, but it applied to my metafield filter since the name “Color” matched up. It pulls hex values and any pattern images I want to use for swatches from the theme’s swatch settings so I have full control of the display there. Clicking a color filter filters down to products with any variant that has that color family assigned, and shows the correct colored variant image in results. Pretty slick to see this working without any coding! It’s great to be able to fully manage color families without an app now.