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annegriet

neutral preference: gray or beige

10 years ago

Which do you prefer? Just curious. I love soft pinks and think you can you soft pink with either gray or beige. Also, what colors have you infused with your neutrals? THANKS.

Comments (34)

  • 10 years ago

    I lean more grey because I love purples and blues and many greys have those undertones.

  • 10 years ago

    Always beige. My furnishings all do well with it. I think that gray rooms are gloomy. I could not live with it on a daily basis. However, we have a second home ( condo) with a small kitchen. There are three Windows giving it lots of bright light. The PO installed gray ceramic tile floors and white cabinets. We had to paint the walls a deeper gray because it was the ONLY color that worked! It looks nice but I find it very limiting. I would never have that it my permanent home.

  • 10 years ago
    last modified: 10 years ago

    Funny grapefruit, I find beiges feel dull, gloomy and sometimes dingy while grey with colors, to me seem, more cheerful and brighter, like a grey sea next to a blue sky. Funny how we all interpret color differently

  • 10 years ago

    Neither for me, really. I don't have any gray, nor much beige. I do have tans and taupes and browns that I tend to mix with greens, golds/yellows, oranges, etc. I gravitate more toward warm colors than cool.

  • 10 years ago

    I love to look at gray, but I don't want to be surrounded by gray. I have to go beige. But I hate taupe and ordinary beige - it needs some gray or yellow in it to work for me. And when I contrast with bright white trim, all is good.

  • 10 years ago

    Sas95, I wonder if the grey vs beige thing is a warm vs cool color preference. I think it must be.

  • 10 years ago

    I love both:) And most of all-I love greige. I think I always did, even before I knew it's called greige.

    I love colors, and I'm usually leaning warm, even with "cool" colors-so if it's blue it will be rather turquoise than navy blue, and if it's red it will be rather scarlet or brick red, than raspberry. I might have small accents that will be exception, but my natural inclination is for warmer tones. Same with white and gray by the way.

    I also love jewel tones. More than before.

    I love purple. A lot. It just needs to be deeper..I don't like Barney kind of purple, unless it's a real flower like orchid or lilac.. I love emerald. Cream. Fuchsia. Pink. Chartreuse. Orange. Taupe. Bone. I love some browns-like chocolate. I find them amazing with happy colors like certain pinks and blues. I love coral and mint together. I'm more open recently to sharper little accents like a bit of black and white. But in a very small dosage, for now.

    It will be too long a list.

    I may dislike certain combinations of colors even if they are beautiful and classic, because they make me feel unsettled or nervous or remind me of something too much.

    I prefer the colors on the walls to be a bit capricious, ever changing(but in a way I'd still like it) and hard-to-put-your-finger-on.

    It's probably really boring to read, but it makes me happy even to talk about colors..so thank you for opening this thread:)


  • 10 years ago

    I feel dumb--I didn't know about greige--just googled it--one thing for sure about Houzz--I always learn something!

  • 10 years ago

    Roarah, I do see it as a cool v. warm thing. But even though I'm a warm color person, I tend to find beige pretty blah.

  • 10 years ago

    We live where there is a definite winter so grey to me is depressing and cold. I think many colors go with either one. I do like a good griege.

  • 10 years ago

    Annegriet, I just googled "loon"..because I had no idea it's the name of a bird too..:)

  • 10 years ago

    I find beiges and yellow undertones easier to live with as its cold much of the year. If I lived where it's hot I'd probably prefer grays

  • 10 years ago

    I like gray in other people's homes, but do not have any in ours. We have tan, creamy white, red, pale blue and yellow.

    Here's an interesting article on this very topic that came in this week's houzz email:


    [https://www.houzz.com/magazine/rethinking-beige-in-a-world-gone-gray-stsetivw-vs~70409938?utm_source=Houzz[(https://www.houzz.com/magazine/rethinking-beige-in-a-world-gone-gray-stsetivw-vs~70409938?utm_source=Houzz&utm_campaign=u3493&utm_medium=email&utm_content=gallery3)

  • 10 years ago

    Funny Annie, because my biggest complaint about beige is that is can go yellow in certain lights. In a predominantly neutral palette, I think I like greiges and warm grays the best. Cool grays can look very institutional in large quantities (someone did the 2nd floor elevator lobby in my building in cool grays and it's awful, like going to the hospital). But as others have noted, if you are pairing the neutral with bright colors, a cool gray can be nice. It just can't be everything.

  • 10 years ago

    I was also wondering 'why not greige'?

    Best of both worlds = J

  • 10 years ago

    Neutrals: white and wood tones (HW flooring, furnishings).

    Colors: from our many Oriental rugs and a few thousand books.

    I like gray, but when you live in an area that gets regular fog/overcast, gray is depressing in tone. Warmer hues work better, then.

  • PRO
    10 years ago
    last modified: 10 years ago

    Interesting conversation. Here's something to think about, adding fuel to the fire. Each of the circle-shaped color swatches in the images below have almost the exact same amount of measured grayness, just different hue parents. Technically, they are all near neutrals, more specifically chromatic grays.

    Another set of near neutrals, darker in value making them specifically muted.

    The colors in the circles are all real paint colors, btw.

  • 10 years ago
    last modified: 10 years ago

    I think both can look beautiful when the shades harmonize nicely with other elements and colors in a house. The bedroom in my husband's old house (where we lived briefly before we sold our previous homes and bought "our" house) was Glidden's "Toasty Gray," which would probably be called a "greige" nowadays. I always thought the color name was funny because it read beige to me, though DH thought it was gray. Though I never would have picked such a neutral color myself (at least not at that point in my life when I was enjoying more colorful walls), I really liked the neutral color with his stained wood furniture (which we still use in our current MB) and found it very soothing... So much so that I'm actually looking at the color one shade lighter on the same color card as a possibility for our current master bedroom ;) It's called "Southern Shadow" by Glidden. Has anyone else use that color, and it if so, does it read gray our beige in your light?

    Even though I'm trending more subtle in my own wall color choices these days, I still love color, or at least hints of if, so I'm not firmly in either camp (gray vs. beige). The only gray room in our house is my son's, where he wanted "battleship gray" walls. We used BM's Stonington Gray and I love it in his bedroom, but that's enough gray for me. We don't have any beige in our house now, but might if I get around to repainting our master bedroom ;)

    I lean toward soft greens on the walls these days, and when we finish our basement I'm thinking of going with a neutral white in the open areas. I also love pale yellow walls, but have overdosed on creamy gold-ish yellow after living with it (SW's Jersey Cream) for 11 years in all of our open areas, and I'm ready for a change.

  • 10 years ago

    SW Accessible Beige rocks my world. It's a greige I can't imagine getting tired of. Definitely the best of both worlds.


  • 10 years ago

    I like Harvest Brown, which is a taupe color. Have painted the last 4 homes with it and havent tired of it yet.

  • 10 years ago

    While I like gray in other peoples homes, I wouldn't care for it in my own home since my furnishings go so well with the warm tan walls. I find it gives off a cold feeing, and i'm always cold already. Imo, I think it's also a trend since it's fairly new to the market and being heavily discussed as well as being used by many.


  • 10 years ago

    Beige has been used ad nauseam for so many years that I would never choose it for a wall color. In unskilled hands it can look very amateurish. I like a warm, not too dark gray but I live in a warm climate, and would use it in one room at the most. I have a dining room that is terra cotta red, another room that is a soft green and two walls that are what I consider gray but that many people read as more greenish in the living room, and the rest of the house is a warm shade of off-white. I love paintings and these colors all go well with my wall art. I do have some beige furniture but with the Chinese porcelain I collect and said wall art, and colorful carpets, it doesn't have a very strong presence. I definitely tend towards warm colors that are medium in hue. I don't like very light or very dark rooms; both make me uncomfortable. Pastels do nothing for me, and they're not something I wear or use in the house.

  • 10 years ago
    last modified: 10 years ago

    I think it depends on how/where the color is used. Both can look good or wrong/off when not in the right setting.

    For my home I prefer beige. For gray in general, I prefer ones with a green undertone.

  • 10 years ago

    I just tried my first gray and really like it! I did BM Gray Owl in the kitchen. It is a lovely neutral with (hard to describe) both subtle green and blue undertones. Almost any accent color looks good with it!

  • 10 years ago

    Definitely grey! I hate fleshy beige! A blogger I read calls it "swine-colored," lol! I did most of our house in SW lattice which is a grey, and some rooms in SW Grecian Ivory, which is more beige-y, bc I felt the furnishings in those rooms were "warmer" & needed the Grecian Ivory. Well, that's what made me realize how much I hate beige, and now I plan to repaint.

  • 10 years ago

    Neither. I hate both beige and gray. The only thing browns I have in my house are unpainted wood, like the floor and cabinets. Oh, and I guess the bronze colored window frames count as brown, but I can't do anything about those. The only thing gray I have in my house are kitchen counters I would kill to be able to replace. Literally saving my pennies for this.

    The only neutral I like is a nice, clean white. It makes a good background for the bright colors I love best.

  • 10 years ago

    I like both. Both grey and beige are neutral enough so that you can add color in furnishings or accessories.

  • 10 years ago

    I believe it comes down to warm vs. cool. I lean toward the warm colors, so beige would be my choice -- or a greige that tilts to the warm side of the scale.

  • 10 years ago

    I like both in certain circumstances. In my own home, I have beige (BM Everlasting, which I think of as a "sand" color) only in the front entry and going up the stairs. I felt I needed a neutral in the midst of the other, more colorful spaces, and gray wouldn't have worked as well with my golds, greens, etc.

    On our second floor, we do have Revere Pewter in the master bed/bath and a cool light gray in the little guest room. I really like both, especially since I can easily change bedding colors.

    I don't think I'd ever have a beige living room or kitchen (nothing wrong with it, just not my preference) but I think I could live with a nice gray in either room. I do think the gray trend is out of control, though!

  • 10 years ago

    I love ALL colors :D Purple and blue are definitely my favorite (to wear). I'd prefer beige over gray neutrals tho. The inspiration for my master bathroom was the Caribbean Sea and the sand beaches (if God can put beige/tans together with cool blue-greens, it's good enough for me) <g> So I have light travertine, "Sea Tones" glass accent tile and Giallo Ornamentale granite. Rest of the house is deep shades of pumpkin, plum, antique gold, browns, greens, black, bronze and cream.

  • 10 years ago

    We changed our walls from a gold/tan to a light warm grey (Revere Pewter). The furnishings are brown, gold, and autumn colours. In real life I much prefer the Revere Pewter, but in pics I must admit the gold/tan walls look better. Strange.

  • 10 years ago

    Gray. I'm drawn to cooler tones, so blues, white, black, silver, reds with bluer undertones, so no orange, olive, brown, etc. for me.

  • 10 years ago

    I'm drawn to cool colors (mostly blues and greens) but I have to keep the gray to a minimum. I prefer beige to gray. Probably the nature/ocean influence.