3 min readWhile “never say never” is a motto worth living by, sometimes you learn what not to do by listening to someone else’s wisdom. In this case, interior designers, who innately understand which colors work in a space and which hues tend to fall flat. We reached out to a handful about which color they’d never paint a living room, and each offered surprising thoughts you can carry forward into your own home.
The Worst Living Room Paint Colors, According to Designers
Living rooms are often hearts of the home—lived-in spaces where you want to cozy up, settle in, and feel at peace. Because of that, neutral tones tend to work best in these spaces, says interior designer Meghan Shadrick. “By choosing something light and balanced, it allows you to play with bolder paint colors or wallpaper elsewhere.” While there aren’t necessarily “bad” living room paint colors, some end up feeling like more of a miss than others.
Green-Yellows
Green is a beautiful color, and it works well in small spaces with the right undertones. That said, a green with ultra-warm, yellow undertones can be very unflattering. “In the evening, artificial light is the only light source, and light bulbs tend to turn green-yellows even more yellow and almost always go putrid in tone,” Shadrick says.
Stark Grays or Whites
We’ve moved past the “millennial gray” phase, and with it, the cool gray tones that tend to read overly cool, stark, or flat, says Brooke Mennen-Talsma, principal designer at Brooke MT Interiors. But there’s another thing to be mindful off: White tones can lean into that realm, too.
“Instead, I’m quite drawn to muted, muddy colors rather than anything too overly bright,” she says. “I find that muted, muddy colors seem to feel more collected and lived-in, and that’s often the way I want to design a space to feel.”
Bright Reds
This bold color family makes no apologies, and it can absolutely work in the right environment. Generally speaking, though, it’s not a designer’s favorite choice for a living room color.
“Reds, though I love them all, can be overwhelming when painted in large areas,” Shadrick tells us. “I tend to use red as an accent, like on a section of cabinetry, or in smaller, cozy rooms, like a study.” In those cases, she’ll really go for it, and color-drench the entire room in red.
Your Favorite Color
This advice sounds backwards, but it’s actually spot-on. Designer Blair Burton says she typically avoids using her client’s favorite color as the living room backdrop. Instead, she’d rather let a favorite color roam around the room.
“Paint can actually limit a favorite color because suddenly everything else has to respond to that one very large, very permanent expression of it,” she says. “I want to bring that color into the room where they can really experience it: in a wonderful textile, a velvet chair, a piece of art, an antique rug, a pillow you can touch, maybe even several different versions of the color living together.”
High-Sheen Finishes
Mennen-Talsma says that finish deserves just as much consideration as the living room paint color itself. “For living room walls, I prefer a low-sheen finish for a softer appearance that doesn’t draw attention to every imperfection,” she says.
Burton agrees, adding that a lower-sheen finish gives the color more depth and creates a softer backdrop for art, furniture, and everything else happening in the room. For contrast (and easier cleaning), you can introduce a little more sheen on trim or millwork.
