White or light grey walls

catoutthebag

Good afternoon

My apartment walls are white, except kitchen being pale blue.

I get decent light, and I like light n airy.

Though, I hang black and white framed artwork, and wonder if a pale grey would look suitably cool and classy and me not get bored/tired of it.

Have you made the change?

TheCyclingProgrammer

You can get bored of anything.

With the right light grey walls can look great.

But let me warn you, you're about to jump down the rabbit hole in your search for the right grey paint.

There are so many aspects to getting the right grey, whether you want something warm or cold, what undertones you want, what way your room is facing etc.

Take a look at the Little Greene range of greys. They have an entire collection.

Beware when looking on Pinterest that as with most colours, what looks great in a professionally lit photo will probably look very different in your room.

TLDR; go for it but it's a hard colour to get right!

TheCyclingProgrammer

Just to add, we ended up with Feather Pillow by Earthborn. Is a very warm earthy grey with purple undertones that complements the purple in our dining room very nicely. It looks more grey in the daytime under natural light but takes on a warmer neutral appearance under artificial light with warm bulbs.

Doozergirl

I did the grey thing when we moved into this house. I even thought it looked white. It was miserable. I can only echo that above post about the rabbit hole and choosing the right colour. I had depression at the time. I'm not sure if the colour was a result of depression or the depression a result of the constantly miserable colour.

House looks so much better since we decorated again. It took me five years to realise I hated the 'white' not the house.

Personality is cool, wallpaper is amazing.

AliJE

We've recently had loads of decorating done in our house due to having had an extension. We've gone for different shades of grey in several rooms and really love it. Don't think it looks cold at all. As others have said though, there are A LOT of greys out there! We must have tried about 15 in our kitchen before we found the one we liked, It's called Strong White but it is definitely grey rather than white. Never previously realised there are such things as cold greys and warm greys but apparently they are. I think grey is the magnolia of 2016

TheCyclingProgrammer

Strong White (F&B?) looked almost a shade of dirty greige in our front room when testing - though I've seen photos of rooms in that colour that look great. Just goes to show how much difference room lighting and orientation can make.

Sedge123

Grey definitely. We have 'polished pebble' by Dulux and love it.

marc81

Sedge123 wrote: »

Grey definitely. We have 'polished pebble' by Dulux and love it.

This is good to hear! We are just in the middle of an extension and once done i'll be decorating pretty much the whole house - Polished Pebble was the top of my short list for the walls. I've had a light grey in the lounge before and it was a bit too blue/violet in some lights... i'd heard that the polished pebble is more of a true grey which sounds promising. I do think it makes white skirting stand out better too by having grey.

Head_The_Ball

After 5 years of living with the builder's magnolia walls in every room, we redecorated throughout recently.

We chose various shades of pale yellow for most of the rooms but we chose (well, Mrs Head The Ball chose and I agreed) a pale grey for our living room.

We both love it.

We bought testers for 3 or 4 closely similar colours, painted sheets of A4 paper and used those to make our choice. It is much easier to see the effect of a colour with an A4 sheet than a square inch piece of card. We found A4 sheets that we could move around better than painting patches on the wall.

We settled on Dulux Clouded Pearl 4

Any Dulux (and other makes) paint supplier should have a large rack filled with paint colour charts.

Tester pots are about £4.50 each. They are made up on the spot for you using a paint mixing machine.

Some suppliers may give you a £4.50 discount if you go on to buy a larger quantity of the same colour as the tester. It is worth asking.

phil24_7

Dulux often do 3 testers for 3 quid direct.

casper_g

We have Laura Ashley Cobblestone in our family room, which is a warm beige-grey, and their French Grey in our bedroom. We love them both - luckily, as we bought them on the spur of the moment as the paint was being all but given as the branch was shutting down a matter of hours later!