How to achieve a grey living room that’s Pinterest worthy

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Grey really seems to be a marmite colour. Some people think it’s had its time as the ‘it’ colour and others still love it. I really love grey and think that it’s a really perfect base colour for a room. We’re currently redecorating our home and we’ve had a few different greys on the walls and I wanted to share what I’ve been learning on our little interior design journey about grey.

I’m sharing this as we are probably about half way through redecorating. Due to lockdowns and other things, we are taking it slow and i’m kind of glad we are as it’s given me time to really think about the design and items I want and to correct any mistakes we made with our initial ideas!

10 Tips to achieve the perfect room with grey

This image I found on Pinterest and it started my obsession with grey walls!
  1. Warm toned greys are perfect for adding a softness to your walls when you love bold patterns! The contrast brings the right amount of cosiness and brightness to your living room. Warm tones take the cold out of the grey colour palette, so go for something with pink or cream undertones or darker grey.
  2. Make sure to check the grey with a tester patch in different types of lighting scenarios. We loved ‘chic shadow’ in our hallway and went all out painting the whole of the hallway, stairs and landing with it. Only to realise it was far too dark a grey for the lighting we had, and the upstairs always felt dark and gloomy, especially during winter. (So we’ve now painted it back to white).
  3. Grey goes well with geometric prints and metallic accessories. Before we painted our longest wall blue as the feature wall with the grey, my plan was to buy silver metallic washi tape and use it to create a geometric pattern on the chic shadow grey wall. It’s an idea that I’m keeping on my Pinterest board for the future.
  4. Add warmth to your greys with wood, vintage or industrial style pieces. When I first started putting our living room together, we had grey walls, carpet, ottoman, curtains and cushions. All of them the same shade of grey, and this is one time that 50 shades of the same grey really doesn’t work! I learned from this mistake that made the room feel boring, miserable and stale and started adding in wood coloured side tables, decorative trays and vintage blue and white vases for pops of colour. In our dining room we now have a wooden top, white legged dining table and it pops amazingly against the Denim Drift statement wall and the Chic Shadow grey.
  5. Use grey to soften the bang from your statement wall! Statement walls are an easy way to change up a room quick! Just by changing one wall, you can really change the feel of the room. We love our blue one downstairs, our grey brick in the kitchen and the chic shadow wall in my office. We originally wanted to paint the statement wall navy, but because of the lack of sunlight in our house due to its location, the room would have felt darker. So we opted for Denim Drift instead from Dulux and it’s been a perfect statement colour as it pairs perfectly with the Polished Pebble grey of the living room and the Chic Shadow of the dining room. (They adjoin through an archway) Although in the future, I will probably just pick one of these greys if we get to knock down the diving wall).
  6. Grey is the perfect base colour! Pair it with white to highlight it. We have white picture rails and lots of white furniture and I love the contrast between the two colours. If white isn’t for you, grey goes with pretty much every colour. I had quite a few grey soft furnishings when I was at university and could use them in our new living room, and whenever you want to change things up, it’s as simple as buying new cushion covers and maybe some blankets! We did this with little pops of navy as we really liked the idea of a ‘seascape’ colour palette of blues, greys, whites and creams to make our living room feel more peaceful.
  7. Want a cosy feel or have high ceilings? Try painting the whole room one colour of grey so that the woodwork and the walls blend together. This creates a perfect back drop for pops of your favourite colour and statement furniture or art prints!
  8. If grey walls aren’t for you, then I recommend grey furniture! Grey isn’t a colour that’s going anywhere anytime soon, so investing in a grey sofa could be a good longterm idea. We got ourselves an Ikea Ektorp in a dark grey and have lightened it up with light grey blankets and cream cushions. We got a great ottoman for a bargain price from Wilko and they come in other colours that would match our colour scheme so at some point we will swap our grey one out for a cream or navy blue one.
  9. Add black furniture. Use a mixture of black, white and grey tones in your living room to create a striking room. Try deep grey on your walls and then black and white furniture and accessories. Black metal furniture like bookshelves and chair frames can add stark lines that outline the room and the white from a rug or a throw will make the room brighter.
  10. Layer up different grey tones. Tonal rooms are so pleasing to the eye, so make sure to mix up the tones from light to dark. A great way to do this is with different textures and patterns in your soft furnishings!

Shop Grey Home Accessories

The Dulux grey paint that we have used

The dining room has been given three walls of ‘Chic Shadow’ We chose to use this simply because we had a lot of it leftover from painting our hallway. It’s a really lovely grey that looks different depending on how the light hits it.

For the living room wall colours, we opted to paint the three walls in ‘Polished Pebble’ by Dulux. I love this grey, it’s so light it gives the room an airy feel and makes it feel bigger.

Do you know somewhere that sells stunning navy or grey room accents? Let me know below!

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