How To Choose Neutral Paint Colors For Your Home

If you choose neutral paint colors well, your home will look like a different place, at least that’s what Ferris said about changing one item in a room. 

Is the room you’re decorating a warm and welcoming place for your family to congregate, lit with northern light?

To create a look that feels balanced and orderly, consider undertones, lighting, and colour palettes.

Whether you are decorating a family room, brightening a north-facing bedroom wall, or giving your kitchen cabinets a new lease on life, these three factors will help create a sense of balance and beauty in your space.

Help yourself with the confidence of knowing that everyone else will put their trust in your work based on this comprehensive guide to choosing the shades of white for all domestic needs, anywhere a person can live.

Why Are Neutral Paint Colors So Popular in Interior Design?

With their flexibility of function and lasting charm, neutral tones have long been a mainstay in interior design.

While bold colors can conflict with the prevailing paint or decor styles of the day, neutrals serve as the calm backdrop on which decorative furnishings can appear to come together.

They bring to a home an air of peace and unity, creating that open, welcoming feeling that so many homeowners seek.

While the appropriate shade or two of neutral wall color, from soft beige to warm gray, is one of life’s little miracles.

A room can appear larger than it really is and feel as dense as a stone cave, depending on how the color is used; so much depends on the light a room receives.

A room’s design can be easily altered with a variety of neutral tones, a must for those who need an annual facelift in interior styles who cannot bear the burden of endlessly repainting.

How Does Lighting Affect Neutral Paint Colors?

Invest in good lighting if you want your paint to look its best. A shade that appears warm and harmonious in a south-facing room might turn gray or purple in a north-facing one.

The quantity, direction, natural yellowness, and type of light all affect how we see color.

South-facing rooms are usually the warmest, and paint colors in these rooms, such as taupe or beige shades, tend to evoke images of both sun-drenched beaches and earthen banks.

However, north-facing rooms receive cool white light all day, which can bring out an entirely different set of color tones from the same realm.

In the afternoon, a west-facing room can look warm and golden, but on a dull morning, it may lack vitality, while an east-facing room is just the opposite.

Before deciding on a color for your room, consider how the light travels around it. And always try painting under samples of several different lights to test colors.

What Are the Best Benjamin Moore Neutral Paint Colors?

Due to its elegant quirkiness and balance, Benjamin Moore’s neutral palette has garnered widespread recognition.

Colors such as Manchester Tan HC-81 have a dusty, earthy flavor that is refined and lasting. It’s an old manor house boarded by the mist in yellow ochre.

From traditional rooms to modern spaces, Manchester Tan warms any interior with its deep sensibilities.

Edgecomb Gray has always been a popular choice. It strikes the delicate balance of beige and grey, a true greige that will complement any kind of woodwork or flooring tone you might prefer to step on this winter.

Standard off-white looks have been banished by Classic Gray and White Dove for those who prefer an airy yet clean-lined style.

This approach to using soft hues without creating the impression that it’s all cold walls and floors is ideal for achieving the pure white aesthetic seen so often on Pinterest, with added depth and warmth.

If you like grayish tones or warm undertones, Benjamin Moore offers neutral options that look great in every situation.

How Do Undertones and Hue Influence a Neutral Color?

If you’re on the fence about what color to paint your walls in your new home, envision how any given shade will complement the light coming through your windows while lying against a white sheet and fresh-piled pillows.

Two shades of beige might look entirely different. One might have pink undertones that make it feel warm and fuzzy, while seen through western light in the early morning hours would deny us a restful night’s sleep.

The other could be a neutral brown, feeling too cool or still disease-stricken under any light at all when juxtaposed with pale yellow walls and skirted furniture.

Understanding the hue of a color can help you avoid introducing colors that are inherently incompatible with your existing paint or fixtures.

Pair a gray neutral with cold undertones against hot-toned cabinets, and you’ll be quite out of sorts indeed.

On the other hand, combining warm neutrals with earthy materials, such as oak floors and stone tiles, produces a seamless, welcoming harmony.

A neutral paint color with well-balanced undertones can be paired with a wide range of design aesthetics, making it a solid investment.

How to Choose a Neutral Paint Color for North- or South-Facing Rooms

Direction is significant when selecting a room color. In a north-facing room, the light tends to lean towards bluer and may make neutrals appear completely different from their appearance on a paint chip.

In such situations, opt for warm neutrals. Beige, tan, or taupe counteracts the cold white light and produces a more inviting ambiance.

However, in a south-facing room, soft greys and greiges can balance the strong sunlight all day long with their coolness.

Therefore, if you are painting a family room that receives a lot of southern exposure, look for a color that does just this, one that needs to be toned down.

Test paint on every wall, for the light throughout the day may change how a given shade looks from morning till evening.

What Are the Most Popular Neutral Paint Colors from Sherwin-Williams?

Indeed, Sherwin-Williams (usually abbreviated as SW) has an equally sophisticated palette in neutral shades. 

Choose from over 100 shades of the following: Perfect Greige: One of the most popular choices for this metro color is Agreeable Gray, as evidenced in interiors worldwide, with its appearance on a variety of surfaces.

The shade itself is a soft greige that performs beautifully under different lighting conditions.

For walls, kitchen cabinets, and even exteriors, agreeable gray is simply one of the most popular paint colors in existence today for good reason.

Another of our perennial favorites is Accessible Beige. It feels both cuddly and polished, adding warmth to a room.

With a slight warm undertone that eliminates any coldness, it makes the perfect color for homeowners seeking to create an inviting atmosphere in their own homes.

For a fresh and unified look that will look great throughout your entire interior, try Pure White trim and contrast it with white-colored woodwork.

How to Use Neutral Paint Colors for a Cohesive Palette

Unexciting does not equal dull. The key to boredom-busting rooms lies in layering shades to give depth.

A cream-colored sofa on off-white walls is refreshed with beige curtains and taupe cushions, grey-edged towels vivaciously playing against its pale cousins.

Slipping tones of a single color into one another, you get a room that seems curated and nuanced, yet never boring.

You can achieve this effect by combining small amounts of lighter or darker hues from the given spectrum (anywhere on this image) to create an overall impression, such as cream matte walls, satin trim, and semi-gloss cabinet doors.

Choose a single color with varying finishes or gloss levels to add texture; check out this wall, for example.

Visual principles are at play here, too: If you add your everyday brick red (or any arbitrarily picked color) over a pink or purple basecoat of that same shade, things start to get interesting, irrespective of how monotonous an individual red may appear in comparison, well, see Housing shown over three images below.

Remember to consider what your floor, rug, or even fixtures contribute to the overall palette. Wood tones, including tile and metal finishes, will all change how the neutral color reads in a given space.

Should You Use Neutral Paint Colors for the Whole Interior?

Repainting every room in a complementary palette of neutral colors makes your life feel a lot easier. The result is that your home becomes almost seamless. The room flows gently into the next room.

Especially well suited to open-plan spaces where visual continuity is of prime importance, this means you’ll be able to see from several types which ideas work well for any particular house.

To avoid boredom, mix your shades from one room to another. So, try a darker gray in the living room for warmth and a lighter beige in your guest room for freshness.

All of this is high-toned rather than loud, deeply layered, and classically balanced. It’s good living without assaulting the senses.

What Role Do Decor Styles and Materials Play in Choosing Neutrals?

The color palette for a neutral room varies with different interior styles. For a look of the north, tones in cool gray are beloved, with white trim and minimalistic woodwork.

For a modern farmhouse style, chic woodwork trends toward warmer tones, with creamy beige and soft taupe being two examples.

While in a coastal atmosphere, using an off-white with grey undertones feels at home and looks breezy, as it lets in natural sunlight.

In decorating, note how the color you choose will affect your flooring, cabinets, and tiles. For example, combining a warm neutral color with cool marble floors may cause unexpected color shifts.

Always place a test paint swatch next to any permanent fittings to check that it does not clash and works in harmony with the existing color.

Now that you want to match on every surface, attention to detail in paint chips becomes imperative. Only in this way can your chosen tone be truly appreciated.

Why Farrow & Ball’s Neutrals Are Worth Exploring

Farrow & Ball paint’s prized neutrals, with subtle depth and rich pigments, differ from those using sprayed-on colors made solely for painting across large areas.

These hues possess a handcrafted quality. They have a soft grain, enhanced by the gloss applied to it, and because of the limited color palette, this brings back a bit of its natural warmth. 

Take ‘Skimming Stone’ for instance: a fairly greyish beige but with just enough yellow to make it warm as well as peaceful (and in return about 60 years for an aged-looking feel). 

While they command a premium, Farrow & Ball colors are viewed by many homeowners as a worthwhile investment for the little extra quality they bring to a finish such as this.

Their paints also have a distinctive gloss level that brings texture to walls of any size, even with very little in the way of color.

Although they come at a premium, many homeowners find the investment worthwhile for the sophisticated finish and the way these shades complement high-end decor.

Farrow neutrals also pair beautifully with Benjamin Moore or Sherwin-Williams tones, allowing for a tailored mix that suits your personal palette.

How to Test Paint Colors Before You Commit

The same color will appear in a completely different light once it’s on your walls. When deciding what to paint your wall, always choose a neutral color and then paint the rooms in question with multiple options.

Should you happen to live elsewhere than at home or do not want other people’s opinions about decorative aspects of color in your rooms, then buy the biggest paint samples (at least 12×12 inches) available.

Then, apply these on many different walls in a variety of natural to artificial lighting throughout this room.

Keep sample boards in constant use: What happens most often is that a shade which looks fine under one set of good conditions but goes too hard (or too soft in any case) for another kind. 

What Are the Best Neutrals for Specific Spaces?

Each room excels with a particular colour. A general guest bedroom, for example, could look simply gorgeous in subtle yet snuggly beige or tan shades that exude warmth and ease. Relaxing, that doesn’t feel too warm or too sad.

A family room, however, could head off pink. This creates an inviting atmosphere that balances light and dark furniture accents.

Neutrals mean there’s no place for traditional walls, which seem sprung from some dark old paintpicker, it’s all beige!

Kitchens and bathrooms, on the other hand, are best in airy, offwhite hues, so the woodwork or cabinets of contrasting colour cannot overpower the room.

The key is to select a neutral which you feel will improve brightness of the space naturally and go well with the material of your space. 

Outside, take into account the landscaping and sunlight exposure when you think about what hue looks best on your field, an indoor neutral’s elegance could appear unbearable outdoors.

How to Avoid Decision Fatigue When Choosing a Neutral

When there are rows and rows of bright paint cans all around you, how do you choose just the right one?

To simplify things, take it step by step and first limit your field to a few reputable companies such as Benjamin Moore, Sherwin-Williams, or Farrow & Ball.

Match the underlying pigments in a color with how they’ll look in your setting; don’t get sidetracked by Internet paint chip trends.

No far extremes, avoid colors that lean too cool or warm, and work with shades that produce a sense of even-keeled calm. After a few days of exposure, keep paint swatches (open to on-site visitors) in a corner.

A contented approach by thoughtfulness will help narrow your choices, yet hopefully not lead to getting lost in all of that decision fatigue.