Which grey is best for a living room? Colour experts share the best shades to choose

If you've found yourself in a conundrum of selecting a colour scheme for your lounge, only to settle on grey as the best choice, you might have found yourself wondering, well, which grey is best for the living room? While it's one of the most versatile colour options, the sheer amount of shade variation means that it can be tricky to know which tone to go for. 

From dark or pale to warm or cool, there are a number of small differences that alter the overall appearance of the shade, and your home will also have an impact. The shape, size and amount of natural light will determine how a colour appears, so you'll want to choose carefully to achieve the best grey living room ideas.  

Ultimately, a living room needs to feel cosy, classic and easy to style up with a range of different furniture and decor options, just in case your taste changes. With a grey palette, this is guaranteed. 

Which grey is best for a living room?

Choosing the right living room colour scheme for your home can feel like a big feat. A lounge is where you spend the majority of your evenings and a spot where friends and family gather. So as well as relaxing and cosy, it needs to be versatile for more sophisticated situations.  

The benefit of a neutral living room is that it easily achieves both of these things. Grey has the potential to be pared-back and minimalist, or bold and daring, depending on the particular hue you choose. And, while picking the final shade might be tricky, this expert-led advice will guide you in making the right decision for your home and decorating goals.

Best for lounging after hours

Kate Watson-Smyth, author of the UK's number one interiors blog Mad About The House understands the dilemma of choosing the right tone better than anyone. In fact she has even written a book on the subject: Shades of Grey: Decorating with the most elegant of neutrals .

'The key is to understand when you use your sitting room most,' begins Kate. 'If it’s in the evening – under electric light – then the classic Down Pipe will always be a winner for me.'

She explains that this popular Farrow & Ball shade is one of the best grey paints for walls because it is a warm grey that looks good under both daylight and lamplight. Sure, it's darker than you might have originally planned, but don't rule it out straight away. 'If you’re worried about the room being too dark, keep the ceiling pale and add light rugs and mirrors to bounce the light around,' advises Kate.

Best in the daylight

Very little beats the feeling of a living room filled with natural sunlight, and if you spend a lot of time in your living room during the day, you'll want a grey shade that looks good with the sun streaming in. 

'A sunny room may look best with a strong, warm grey,' comments Helen Shaw, UK Director at Benjamin Moore. 'Balboa Mist 1549, for example, is one such paint and works beautifully with white for a light and bright, south-facing living area.'

Helen feels that north-facing living rooms will better suit a cool grey, such as Kendall Charcoal HC-166 (pictured below), which is a dramatic tone sure to add ambience. However, if you're worried a cool grey will make your north-facing room chilly and uninviting, try a grey with a warm undertone, like pink or lilac, or something with an earthier tone. To create texture and more of an industrial vibe, you could use a concrete effect grey paint, available at Craig & Rose.

Best with other colours

Considering yellow and grey living room ideas to brighten up your space? Partnering a colour with grey is a great way to add a jolt of colour and break up the space.

However, when using grey with other colours, how do you make sure they don't clash? Because greys come with different undertones, you can use a grey shade as a jumping-off point for bringing colour into your living room. Tash Bradley, Lick'sDirector of Interior Design and Colour Psychologist, says a lovely way to bring out the undertone in a grey is to partner it with the same, or similar colour. 

For example, a grey with a green undertone decorated with green soft furnishings, artwork or decor pieces will make the undertone more dominant. 'A grey with a pink undertone will partner beautifully with lilac or even red,' Tash adds. 'This is because we never see colours in isolation, we take them in as a pair so you need them to harmonise and work together.'

Whether you go dark or pale comes down to personal preference. From my experience, I'd say not to shy away from a shade that looks a little on the dark side. Even the totally inoffensive Chic Shadow by Dulux looked dark on my walls when I painted a sample, but I'm so glad I didn't go any lighter. These days I'd be much more bold and plump for Down Pipe as Kate Watson-Smyth suggests. 

So, which grey will you pick? Based on the natural light in your home and the size of the room, you can start ruling out some of the options straight away.

Once you've decided between cool or warm-toned, you can buy tester pots of Lick's stick-on samples to see how the grey looks at different times of the day, in different parts of the room. It can feel like an overwhelming choice but by using this advice as a jumping-off point and trusting your intuition, we know you'll make the right choice.