I had beige walls and bought a beige upholstered headboard and it was terrible. They actually clashed really bad. I then decided to keep the beige walls except paint the headboard wall as an accent wall in a very dark color. I love it now. Anyway, I think the moral of my story is to buy a headboard with contrast to your wall color. If your gray/blue nightstands look nice against the wall color, go with something like that color for the headboard.