The Best Neutrals to Pick as a Paint Color
Instead of Gray

Does the idea of painting any room in your home give you anxiety? I get it! Painting can seem like a huge project. Especially when there are so many different colors to choose from. Here in Western Massachusetts, we get asked all the time what paint color to go with and what to consider when picking a paint color. How do you stay on trend when paint seems like such a permanent fixture in a home? Well, first off, paint is really EASY to change in most instances. Second, we’re here to HELP!

Although easily changeable, paint really is a big factor whenever designing a room and, as with any type of design, color trends are always changing. One way to mitigate a room feeling out dated as quickly is to go with a neutral! BUT, then you have the question of which neutral. We know gray comes in and gray goes out. Beige comes in and beige goes out. BUT there are all different kinds of grays and beiges. There are blue grays, there are violet grays, there are true grays. There are gold beiges, there are pink beiges. What happens is it’s really the undertone that changes and THAT is what goes in an out of style.

Remember in the 90s when we had that gold beige everywhere? Then the trend started to move toward really cool grays. So now we’re trending back a little bit toward beige but I’m not sure we’re going to go all the way to that gold beige that we had back in the 90s. So what I recommend to clients now if they want a neutral and they want a gray, is greige (yes, this is an actual color!) It’s kind of a mix of gray and beige, as the name implies.

Benjamin Moore Sea Salt is a really pretty, really pale greige so that is a great neutral if you don’t want to go full gray or you don’t want to go full beige. This is a good compromise. Another greige is called Benjamin Moore November Rain. November Rain is a little bit more beige than the Benjamin Moore Sea Salt, but they’re both really pretty neutrals that you can go with instead of going with gray.

If you want to move away from gray and beige, another thing that you can do for a neutral which is really popular right now is white walls. Yup, that’s right WHITE WALLS! I did Sherwin-Williams Alabaster in my own master bedroom (Click HERE to read the blog post on that project). Alabaster is a really pretty off white that looks white when you paint all the walls that color. I recommend off white and not true white because white is just too stark. If you go with super bright white, it tends to look cheap. The same thing goes for if you’re painting other things as well, such as trim. People are loving white trim nowadays. But go with off white, something like Benjamin Moore Cloud Cover. If you hold Cloud Cover up to white, it will look really dark, but if you were to look at it by itself or up on your walls, it will just look white.

Another neutral you can go with is a pale BLUE. Not really what you usually think of as a neutral right? Pale blue can actually become a neutral, use something like Benjamin Moore Gray Sky. Gray Sky is actually blue and not gray. Don’t ever go by just the paint name as they are very misleading. Look at the actual paint color. One of my other favorites is Sherwin-Williams Sea Salt (NOT Benjamin Moore’s Sea Salt that was mentioned above). Sherwin-Williams Sea Salt is a really pale blue green that acts really well as a neutral.

My last suggestion for a neutral other than gray is taupe! One really pretty taupe is Benjamin Moore Stone Hearts. With this color you’re working your way more towards beige and further away from gray. BUT you’re NOT going into a full gold beige of the 90s.

So there you have it! Those are some great neutrals to work with that are not beige and not gray. Do YOU have a favorite neutral color to work with? Leave a comment with the paint color name so we can look it up. AND as always if you’re at a total loss, book a consultation with us HERE. OR, if you’d like to chat about how we can help you click HERE.

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