Depending on the circumstances you could use gray/tan art or pottery or rugs or pillows to help make the gray and the warm combination seem more deliberate.

I completely feel your frustration. I am helping someone figure out how to undo the clashing finishes in this house. The current choices in the real estate photo are like nails on a chalkboard to me.

I don't really think there is. Unless it needs to be redone, I would not buy a house w a kitchen I did not care for.

It might depend on the specifics but I think it can be done. Layering different whites/creams in a space takes the sterility out. Adding in natural elements like plants, baskets, wood bowls etc makes the gray tile or counters or whatever a supporting player. There are certain professionals I trust when it comes to making color work when there's a budget and items that have to stay like counters or tile. I'd be on the phone for a consult. But as you say you are not there yet and it might not even come to that. In the meantime try googling to see what others have done - you know there are others who have tackled this already.

Yes deeg - I've seen listings like that and they make me cringe. I learned early on when I painted a bathroom with a gold floor some pinkish shade of beige that some color combos are just painful to look at. I'm still really bad at picking paint colors but I'm no longer that bad.

Yeah mtn, that's what I'm thinking. I can accept a lot of things many other people wouldn't but gray and white is really not my thing. The one listing I was looking at most recently has what looks to have nicely redone kitchen and bathrooms but I think the cold, gray and white esthetic would bug me forever. Well I'm a long way from being ready to buy a house so I should go do something more productive with my day.

Okay dlm - I won't rule it out entirely then.

Unless it's a fake grayed out wood, I don't mind pretending it's a neutral gray.

Grey is often a good backdrop for green, which I like. I put in a gray floor in my addition because it looked good with my green kitchen tile. Does it look good with my very warm creamy yellow walls? Maybe not, but I like it. :)

I'm a long way from being ready to buy a house so I should go do something more productive with my day.

Not really, I have been looking so long now that i recognize street names, have seen houses come back on after selling, and I can guess the floorplan from the outside. I know my target neighborhoods and towns, and also know which are a no-go. We won't buy until we sell and even then, we have a large elderly dog to consider before we get our dream urban pied a terre. But I don't think the time is wasted, plus it's fun.

LOL mtn - well looking is one thing. Figuring out how you'd deal with a house you're not going to buy is something else. There's another one for sale that we love, that surely won't be available when we're ready to buy, but I'm already planning for my life there - fun but kind of crazy.

I think grey can be warmed up, even in a kitchen. In my house, I have very pale grey walls…basically a neutral, but for sure cooler than beige. I have white millwork and white cabinets, and carrera marble on my perimeter countertops. Sounds hopelessly sterile, right? But, you hit the nail on the head with your comment about wood floors. We have acres of 5” wide white oak floors, plus a large walnut-topped island. The wood warms everything up. Honestly, for what I love in a kitchen, I could’ve even done the island in marble and the wood floors alone would have been sufficiently ”warm” enough for me…but I will say that people REALLY love that island top.

Perhaps you could add a wood section of counter if the kitchen doesn’t have an island?

Nini, your house sounds beautiful!

And that photo Dee posted is just kind of tragic. It looks like the were wanting to ”redo” existing cabs (note the arch doors) but chose a regrettable finish that besides being regrettable in and of itself…completely clashes with what I can only assume was the existing floor.

Sigh. I’m not trying to be mean…but rooms like that are what make people dislike grey. (And my phone is telling me ”regrettable” is correctly spelled but it looks wrong to me.😂)

The warmth of wood is magic and I love the mix of warm and cool, so think about a mix for example like adding brass accents. Also wicker/rattan can bring in warmth too. I'm no pro and everyone here has much more experience but it's just a few thoughts.

What do the new buyers do that are STUCK with these messes--PAINT. If selling please just clean and fix! DO NOT DO NOT DO NOT choose what other's might want!!!--they don't!!

3katz, do you follow Maria Killim on Instagram? She talks a lot about undertones.

deeg, can your friends repaint the cabinets and the walls in shades that are complementary to the floor? I can’t really tell from the photo, but the floor seems to have a pink or an orange undertone.

bbstx, painting the walls and cabinets with some version of warm white/cream is a given. There is orangey oak laminate in the adjoining open space room that butts up against the kitchen tile and that's being replaced as well. She is getting a quote for replacing the tile and laminate, it may be out of budget. Also, the current owners mixed warm and cool bulbs in the kitchen which makes determining undertones from the pics even more difficult.

It's a solvable problem, it's just going to take a lot of paint samples.

I would warm it up with accessories in wood, textiles, art, plants, baskets, candles, etc. If the flooring is too grey, add big area rugs. If the walls or cabinets are grey, paint them!

I personally like grey -- It's a very easy to work with neutral. But it need to be used well: not overdone, and using high quality finishes, good upholstery, or a well chosen paint color. The trouble is that most flippers are not designers and just spew the cheapest, most basic boring grey everywhere. They don't know how to do it properly.

BTW: I think grey and beige can go together if you do it right.

I don't love this decor, but the color palette is lovely and warms up a room with a greyed out wood floor:

A couple other things:

Remember that for many home listings, the photographers use a ton of lighting and then edit the photos to be way higher contrast than what you see IRL. Or in other listings, the photography is just bad. So don't immediately judge a too-grey home you see online, it might actually look better when you see it in person.

And of course the right lighting can help warm it up! This is a situation where 4000k bulbs might make it worse. Experiment with 3000-3500k and see how that feels. (Personally that's all I have in my house, I don't like 4000k lighting -- it kind of greys out when you dim it.)

GE "reveal" bulbs are neutral but with a very subtle tinge of pink. You can't see that's it's pink, it warms up the room in a lovely way that's not yellowish. The only downside is that you have to put it in every fixture in the room, any other kind of bulb in the same space will look different by comparison. But they really are beautiful, I put them in all my bathrooms for the most flattering makeup light ever.

The townhouse next to mine was bought by flippers that made everything grey, especially the LVT grey wood-look floors throughout. The listing looked like it was photographed in B&W with an occasional pop of color. I also prefer beiges and warm tones and I would not have bought that house because of the floors, but the new owner is thrilled.

Now I'm re-doing my master bath and it's hard to find tile and countertops that aren't grey!

I like yellow and gray together, and have seen nice kitchens with that color combination . I also like pink and gray.

Arcy, is this you?

”HU-787167202

2 hours ago

What do the new buyers do that are STUCK with these messes--PAINT. If selling please just clean and fix! DO NOT DO NOT DO NOT choose what other's might want!!!--they don't!!”

LOL mtn - well looking is one thing. Figuring out how you'd deal with a house you're not going to buy is something else.

I do this all the time. When people post real estate listings or if I'm googling something house/home related I will envision myself in it and imagine the changes that I would make. I view it as exercising my imagination rather like exercising your brain by doing Wordle or Sudoku.

If the kitchen that you're looking at has an island that could be something that is easier and less expensive to change out than a whole kitchen. Paint it and/or change the counter to add colour or more texture. I change a lot of islands in my reimagining a space.

I also get rid of the preponderance of potlights and add real pendants or chandeliers in rooms.

I like that beige and gray room above but I'd be sticking more with furnishings I already have (from my woodsy lake place that is at the complete opposite end of the spectrum from gray/white) rather than a complete redo. I do have some pink wing chairs though. 😉 I did go off and do something useful today but then I dug a little deeper and found the listing for the flippin' house when the flipper bought it. Other than currently being overpriced (two reductions so far) I think they maybe did a decent job. All the wood floors have been redone to make them consistent and fresh throughout the house - color of the floors is good. All the bathrooms have been redone and doesn't appear to be on the cheap - though you wouldn't know for sure without seeing in person. Kitchen is also nice - just the gray/white counters and gray tile that I don't like. The entire interior has been painted white (not my cup o' tea but easily changed) as has the exterior which doesn't bother me. It's on a nice lot with a lovely view. Now I'm starting to think I could live there....though it's way more house than we need/want.

BLFenton, were we separated at birth?

We are restoring and doing some updates to an old farmhouse and I was originally planning to do the bathroom in the same earthy tones of tan, brown, blue and burnt orange that I've used in the rest of the house. But, when the vanity arrived, the granite countertop was much more gray than I was expecting (it looked like it was mostly brown tones in the photos) which made me change my color plans.

I ended up painting the walls in a gray shade that had brown undertones and that really warmed things up. The trim is a creamy white. My towels and rugs are burgundy and the fixtures are brushed nickel. I was skeptical that it would work with the rest of the house, but it actually does. I've grown to really like it even though I'm not a big fan of this gray trend that is so popular.

You might try doing as suggested above and warming up the kitchen and other rooms with rugs, decorative pillows, throws, artwork, etc. In my eyes, colors that work with gray are reds/oranges, light shades of green, certain shades of brown/tan and yellows.

I do hope the gray trends goes away soon. I imagine it's very easy for flippers and decorators to do all gray and white and add a few accents here and there rather than having to give any thought to colors that work together.

I like the combination of gray, white, beige and gold or yellow. Light butcher block looks great with gray

It might be a situation where you replace a few of the white counters with wood, and replace hardware with aged brass. You’re going to have to have window treatments regardless, and you can have your stuff reupholstered in gray and yellow prints that make the most of the fixed elements while warming it up.

I like cool colors mixed with warm woods, oriental rugs, greens, and golds and shades of reds alot. Think of classic combos like mahagony marble topped tables rather than Joanna Gains grey items. You could paint some cabs in a earthy green. Use art and rugs and brass accents.

Plants and beige textured items help too.

I too would have issues with all the gray. But when it comes to adding color, a little can go a long way. I often think of Sarah Richardson's kitchen redo which reads warm and yellow, yet when you look, the only yellow is in the island, a bit in the valances and some in the flowers.

Here is another...the orange wouldn't be my choice, but this is just to look at the use of color and how it offsets all the gray. Color is in the chairs, the island and the accessories and window treatments.

Well other than gray, some of my other least favorite colors are gold, yellow, orange, etc. I do however like blue and green and I read that those could work. I also like bluish red. If I were to hypothetically buy the one house I was looking at recently, I wouldn't change cabinets and counters because they're brand new and white cabinets are fine - they're not gray. The main thing I would have to do is paint all the stark white walls. I paint almost all my walls some shade of beige, tan, mocha, etc. My office is green, powder room blue, everything else beige. So I'd have to come up with some kind of neutral wall color that goes with gray and white that somehow feels warm. After looking a bit online it seems like that can be done.

i think of blue as a cool color so did not suggest it but i love my blue, grey, marble with mahogany vanity bathroom.

I hate to say it but I dislike combinig with grey and any shade of red. It's such a jarring contrast. It reminds me of people who decorate their home based on their favorite sports team colors.

Since you don't like gold or yellow, a good way to warm up grey is with natural touches. Wood, sisal, leather, richly textured off-white (or beige) textiles, etc.

I do like the idea of using blues and greens!