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I'm So Behind Everyone Else On This Thing With The Color Gray

5 years ago

I'm just now really paying attention to the color gray. I've been noticing houses, cars, fabrics (I'm looking for a new quilt to make). And it's been popular for several years now. What's up with me?? And of course, I have a closet full of fabric stash and hardly any gray - go figure.

Comments (45)

  • 5 years ago

    And with any luck it's on its way out of favour. You won't find a spec of grey in my home.

    (As she sits in her house at 8:30am on the Cdn side of the PNW and it's still dark and grey and dreary and drove through a raging rainstorm at 6:30 this morning.)

  • 5 years ago

    My color is GREEN. All over the house... my car is green... and can't hardly wait for spring and everything to green up.

    But, the inside of my last house was all grey, and I have to say, it was easy to decorate!

  • 5 years ago

    That's OK Rita, like any trend, this one seems to be winding down. I wonder what people will do with all the gray and white kitchen remodels, besides wait until it becomes stylish again. I did a bathroom in gray and white about 25 years ago, not knowing I was ahead of the curve ;0)

  • 5 years ago

    Been popular for longer than just a few years :-) I painted my bedroom dove gray when I was in high school. And that was a very long time ago :-)

    I like gray.....it is a great neutral. And nicely offset by a bunch of strong colors that I would not choose to have present in abundance but are wonderful accents.

  • 5 years ago

    My color is pinks! Every now and then it’s some “color of the year”, so every now and then I’m in style. I’m getting ready to paint my dining room from a too-pink mistake to a more subtle pink. The foyer is Hepplewhite Ivory and the kitchen is Creamy something, both read yellow.

  • 5 years ago

    Oh I wouldn't want to surround myself with nothing but gray but it really does look good with every other color and the newer shades on the houses and cars are very attractive. I realize that it's been popular in past years, when I was a kid we lived in a charcoal gray house. I especially like silvery blue grays, which is the color of my house now.

  • 5 years ago

    I really like grays especially those that lean to the blue spectrum. I like them much more than beige and tans. Unfortunately they freshly painted this house in the beige and tan lines right before we bought it. So I am living with it.

  • 5 years ago

    We did our house in gray 25 years ago - gray carpet, gray window treatments and gray countertops. Last spring, I decided it was time to paint - sand colored walls with rusty orange accent walls, carpet in the bedrooms were replaced with a tweed look of tan, brown, rust and blue carpet (little specks of color, they look terrific with the walls). The kitchen has cornbread color walls and the window sills were painted in brick red. The carpet in the living room and the lino in the kitchen were replaced with hickory hardwood a few years ago after a kitchen flood and the yellow/brick really works with the wood.

    I'm so happy with these warmer, earthy colors - glad the gray is gone, although I did like it at the time.

  • 5 years ago

    My DH is a beige and blue man. His take on it is bedrooms should be blue, kitchens and bathrooms should be yellow and everything else beige!

    I refuse to have a beige/tan vehicle!

  • 5 years ago

    I cant get into gray. There is a small area in my hallway that used to be a laundry area I suspect. It was turned into an office/storage nook by a previous owner. It was/is a dark gray and it doesn't BOTHER me, but it's not a color i would have picked. Its such a small area,so I just leave it be. I like either pretty,bright pastels or deep,rich jewel tones. Pink in every room would be bliss for me. I try to compromise for the man though,and have confined the color to everything in my kitchen. :/

  • 5 years ago
    last modified: 5 years ago

    Every wall in my house , all ten rooms, are white and have been since I moved here 36 years ago, Since it's 181 years old , I find white a great canvas for what I place on the horsehair plaster walls. Rooms have color themes throughout and all the tall woodwork and window frames are painted different colonial colors like wine red, Prussian blue, tavern mustard, and sage green and then stuff coordinates with that.

  • 5 years ago

    Some shades of gray are very attractive to me, most others not.

    Right now I am looking for a carpet remnant for my cold family room floor, and everything (suitable/within budget) out there is either gray or tan - neither of which I want! What happened to blue and green?

  • 5 years ago

    My DD built a new house recently and the decorator said gray has gone now...and it never made its way into my house. To me it is a depressing color....guess that is why I like bright sunshine instead of cloudy weather.

  • 5 years ago

    There are only a few grays that I can tolerate and even then only in small doses. I need something warmer. So many car interiors are black or gray that I usually have to order my cars in order to get beige.

  • 5 years ago

    I could have probably used gray about 15 years ago when I lived in my blue house. Gray really isn't my color. I am not and have never been a beige person. I love yellow walls. This house was brand new and painted in 'macadamia' (beige) with 'navajo white" when we bought. No way was I paying the builder to spray paint it another color. It's currently $400-800 per room to bring in a contractor to paint. I'm slowly repainting as I can. I've decided I'm going back to the basic boring 'white' that beige and gray have replaced. I'm procrastinating. I have a couple hours left upstairs and I will have dd's room done.

  • 5 years ago

    Our exterior trim is gray and so too are several rooms. I dislike beiges and tans and it provides a nice change from the slightly off white color we have elsewhere. .

  • 5 years ago

    I remember in the 70's there was a span of time where EVERYTHING was brown, beige, ugly gray-green or tan and it was just so yucky. I broke out and painted my kitchen and dining room a burnt orange color and the outside of the house yellow with white trim. Almost everyone who came to the house exclaimed how the house seemed so happy and cheerful - no wonder amidst all those dirt colors everywhere.

  • 5 years ago

    I love gray. Especially smokey shades. Or gun metal gray with blues. DH would fill the house with beige, taupe and more beige.

  • 5 years ago

    When we moved to our house almost 2 years ago, dh had to do a lot of remodeling... including painting some butt-ugly wall colors! We did go gray - each room is a different shade (from the palette samples) and one is almost a lavender. I love every room color and it really flows nicely. We found a great carpet that has a multitude of colors in it (can't go solid with the pets we have).

  • 5 years ago

    I love gray, and as far as I'm concerned, it never goes out of style, no matter what anyone else says. I am not fond of beige or brown and find those colors much more difficult to live with. Everyone has their own color preferences, and it has nothing to do with what is in style. I recently redid a couple of bathrooms using gray 24"x24" Italian porcelain tiles. What I find incredibly boring is white subway tiles. I was never a fan of subway tiles anyway, but they are less offensive if installed in a chevron pattern. I do not want to be reminded of a subway station when I am in a residence.

  • 5 years ago

    I also find I have more gray clothes now than black.

    When we decided on paint colors, we went with what we like - never consulted anybody else. We live there, they don't!

  • 5 years ago

    We'll be in this house for 15 years in March with all the same original paint colors inside and out, so I don't think I would be considered someone who follows the trends. And when we moved in here, the trend was all warm colors like golds, warm reddish browns, clay oranges, etc. so I wasn't following trends when I picked these cool blue-gray colors. I might not change them for another 15 years if they hold up. Actually, the inside is holding up very well but not the outside, hot Florida sun is really doing a job on the outside. I will probably go with the same or very similar though when we do have to repaint.

  • 5 years ago

    I like using gray thread when piecing quilts. It's a great neutral!

  • 5 years ago

    I need warm colors so no gray or stainless for me. People comment on how cozy my house is....just as we like it. Gray leaves me feeling cold.

  • 5 years ago

    Every one of the house flipping shows do gray exterior, gray and white bathrooms, and gray and white kitchens. I don’t like the kitchens at all!

  • 5 years ago

    I love grey, especially natural stone. It pairs well with white and reddish brown wood. I have a whole house done in that color palate. But.....only one. :0) Chip & Joanna Gaines have made a career out of using grey as their main house color, both exterior and interior. I'm not giving up on grey or stainless steel appliances....but I'm open to using warm colors with grey.

  • 5 years ago

    My master bathroom has gray walls, only because the shower curtain I decided to buy has gray whales printed on it. Not too long after I painted my bathroom, my son came to visit and on his way home, stopped at a gas station to use the bathroom. He took a picture and sent it to me and some of his friends, making the comment that he found the same color wall in the gas station as I had painted in my bathroom. I am getting tired of it and am thinking of painting it a lighter gray color.

  • 5 years ago

    I don’t pay attention to whether a particular color is trending in or out. Most of the printed articles are incorrect, worthless, trying to get you to believe you are ‘out of date’ so buy something else. Choose what makes you happy and is easy to decorate around and with. Some grays are cold and some aren’t as cool. Same with tans and beige. I found many pale grays can be easier to add colors with as accents.

    I got tired of a lot of brown, beige and taupe even though I used a lot of green with it.

  • 5 years ago

    I usually swing through 10 year spans; I'll have cooler tones, then move warmer, then cooler again, etc. I guess my design aesthetic is Change--just not too often. On a smaller scale I do this with decor: when September rolls around, I can't wait to incorporate reds, oranges, dark greens. By January, I'm thrilled to stuff all that in a bin and get back to normal blues, creams, spring greens, etc.

  • 5 years ago

    I like gray. It's calming, neutral and to me, non-offensive. It's all a matter of taste. As far as trends, that's done so fashion slaves will redecorate every few years to showoff. Go ahead, I've always gone for what I like, not what's "trendy".

  • 5 years ago

    I do NOT like grey as a neutral. Too many variations in the shades (warm? cold?) and it’s hard to blend other colors with it. Especially when people are gushing over grey kitchens and then have to paint their real wood cabinets (!!!) so they’ll blend.

    Plus I’m sick to death of decorators pushing it for the past 10 years. Very glad it’s trending away.

    All that said, I do like to wear grey. I just don‘t want it in or on my house.

  • 5 years ago

    I said this before about gray, colors do affect our moods. I lived in a house with gray walls that were light enough to be thought white. But then I realized I kept thinking it was going to rain - it was the wall color giving me the impression of a cloudy, dreary day. Not a good thing.

    Give me warm colors any day. I would much rather be warm than cold so those are my color choices.

  • 5 years ago

    I like wearing gray--a dark heather gray is my current favorite. I haven't liked decorating with gray, with the exception of the baseboard and door trim in our upstairs hallway, done in 1994. The walls were papered in a country print--an off-white background with small gray and peach baskets. My DD loves gray, and she has since removed the wall paper, and painted the walls a light gray, with off-white trim.


    Now that the trend is winding down, I find I like the color more. I used grays in a rental house my sibs and I inherited, which I eventually remodeled for resale, using mostly mistinted/oops paint to save on costs. The colors worked--the house was on the market less than a week when we received an offer we accepted.

  • 5 years ago

    If you are in a hot climate, such as the Coachella Valley, then cool colors can be comforting. The only cold climate I've lived in was San Francisco, but then I never spent the winters there after the first two. In August, I would go to Vancouver to get away from the summer fog. I think the climate might be changing there from when I lived there in the 1970s and 1980s.

    For me it has always been rare to see gray skies (except in SF), and so I found them exhilarating.

  • 5 years ago

    I'm the same as Blfenton: I grew up in the dreary Pacific Northwest and despise the color gray, as it reminds me of the ever-present clouds of that area. I don't think it's a coincidence that blue is my favorite color! Having said that, I do think a very soft grey background with lots of color accompaniment in the room can look nice.

  • 5 years ago
    last modified: 5 years ago

    I moved from CA to Portland as a newlywed. It didn't go well.;)

    After swearing on all that is holy I would never jump on the grey bandwagon, we're about to begin a master bath reno and guess what?!? I'm excited, though, and think it will be lovely. Soft grey and cream with gold accents.

  • 5 years ago

    "it reminds me of the ever-present clouds of that area"

    And yet.......the clouds here are NOT ever-present, even in winter!! It is a gloriously bright and sunny morning here and I have some serious outdoor plans before things change :-) And I don't even mind the gray, gloomy days when they occur!

  • 5 years ago
    last modified: 5 years ago

    I think this can has been kicked down the sidewalk before. According to a source of climate data by location I found, Seattle has 152 sunny days a year. The US average is 205 and places known to be "sunny" have around 250 or more.

    It also says Seattle has 155 days a year with "some kind of precipitation". That's the same as 3 days each week year round. I know there are sunny stretches in the summer time so that means rain is more frequent than 3 of every 7 the other times of the year. As in the winter. These are averages, of course, over many years.

    For most people, that's enough to justify the "cloudy and rainy" reputation that Seattle and the Puget Sound area have.

  • 5 years ago

    i like the warm grays/greige. they are a great backdrop for most things and very easy to coordinate with other colors. i find the give off an relaxing vibe...

    we did our L.R. in "balanced beige" and i love it, soft, easy on the eyes...

  • 5 years ago

    Have you ever lived here? If not, distant observations based on online sources are not really relevant. And the Puget Sound area is not the cloudiest location in the US by any means........Pittsburgh and Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati OH are right up there as are many locations directly adjacent to the Great Lakes. And none of them offer the jaw dropping scenery of the Puget Sound area, which is hard to duplicate and is often just as visible in midwinter gray as it is in blue sky summers.

  • 5 years ago

    Some very interesting perspectives here. I love the gray spectrum and find it very useful as a neutral or background for a splash of color. I'm tired of the beige colors that were seen everywhere for while. I'm finding soft gray to be a perfect counterpoint for the bright accents I always have in my home.

  • 5 years ago
    last modified: 5 years ago

    I spent 4 months in the military (April to August) at a base just south of Tacoma. During my active career years, I probably spent another 6 months in total during more than a dozen trips. My exposure is quite limited compared to those who have spent years in the area but drizzly and cloudy accurately describes too many of my experiences. Including days in the late spring and early summer months.

    Yes, there are parts of the area that are quite picturesque. But the dreary weather is a downer for many who are accustomed to sunshine. I know more than a handful of people from my area who moved up to the Seattle area for job opportunities and left within a few years because they couldn't take the weather. That includes one guy (as I think of it) who was born and raised in the Seattle area, had spent about 15 years down here, moved back for a job change and to be closer to family. He quit his job to return here after 18 months. As he described it, he'd gotten accustomed to better weather and had forgotten how dreary it could be for days on end.

    I'm sure there are those who like it gray and damp. Seems like gardengal is one of them.

  • 5 years ago

    It's not that we like it so much as that we don't have to shovel it, we don't have to wear 4 layers of clothes to try to stay warm, it doesn't destroy our homes, and we have the most beautiful forests for outdoor recreations. But yea, it isn't for everyone. And when it is clear and when it's sunny we really, really, really appreciate it. :)

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