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Painted gray, turned out blue?

N B
3 years ago
last modified: 3 years ago

Hi everyone,

I recently repainted my living room and dining room. The walls used to be yellow and I wanted them to be a neutral gray. I used one coat of primer and then painted the walls with Behr’s Canyon Wind. But the walls ended up looking a pale blue instead of the gray colour I was going for. Is there any way to fix this and make it look closer to gray without repainting both rooms? This is what it looks like currently:



Comments (11)

  • erinsean
    3 years ago

    I have heard lighting makes wall colors look different....is the picture with sunlight or is with indoor lamps? If lamps, maybe changing the bulbs would help. I have had several people say that their paint looked more blue than grey. Looks nice and clean.

  • jay06
    3 years ago

    The color as is looks very nice. There will be suggestions for you to change your light bulbs and add certain colors in decor to minimize the blue, but honestly, I've never seen that these kind of changes will transform the color to the degree you might be hoping for.

  • Hailee Raines
    3 years ago

    We went through 3 different gray paint colors and they all turned out blue!! I looked it up on Pinterest as to why it would turn blue and I found out that since our house faces north the shadows and less natural light turns it blue. So I looked up what gray colors were good for a north facing house and the color I picked worked. Hope this helps you!!

  • izeve
    3 years ago

    Did you paint your ceiling? It looks yellowish which I think is bringing out the blues in the wall paint. Paint your ceiling white - Behr's white ceiling paint is a good product.

  • Jennifer Hogan
    3 years ago

    izeve hit the nail on the head - you have yellow ceilings and that will contrast with the gray and make it feel more blue.


    This is a graphical representation of your paint color with different color backgrounds.


    Every gray block is the same color RGB 228, 230, 225



    N B thanked Jennifer Hogan
  • N B
    Original Author
    3 years ago

    Thanks everyone! I didn’t paint the ceiling but I’ll try that and see if it helps. @Jennifer Hogan @izeve Is it also possible that because the walls were yellow before, they look more blue than gray? Could painting a second coat help it look more gray as well?

  • Jennifer Hogan
    3 years ago

    You should always paint a second coat, but yellow under the gray would make it look less blue not more blue if you had bleed through. How you make gray is by mixing equal strengths of the three primary colors (Red, Yellow, Blue). If you add more Yellow and less blue you get brown.



  • Jennifer Hogan
    3 years ago

    Our perception of color is never in isolation, we see color as it relates to other colors. Our brain calls respond to stimulus but can respond differently when nearby areas of the brain are stimulated. One of my favorite experiments shows that our brains can actually make us see color that isn't there at all.


    https://www.animations.physics.unsw.edu.au/jw/light/complementary-colours.htm


  • PRO
    Lori A. Sawaya
    3 years ago

    I didn’t paint the ceiling but I’ll try that and see if it helps.


    Does it look yellowish in real life?


    Because your ceiling doesn't look yellow -at all- on my monitor.


    You definitely shouldn't base your next steps on an assumption others have made only informed by what they're seeing on their monitor.

  • jay06
    3 years ago
    last modified: 3 years ago

    If you're going to consider painting the ceiling and also giving the walls a second coat, it might be a better solution to put all that extra work into painting a different gray that is less blue.