A decade ago, gray became the go-to color for homes appealing to everyone who wanted a neutral alternative to beige. While we’re now seeing a shift towards warmer whites and natural wood tones, many homes still feature the unfavorable gray flooring of the time, which often gives homes a cold and gloomy atmosphere. If your home features this type of flooring, don’t fret; it doesn’t have to take all the warmth and coziness away from your space. By following today’s decorating tips, you can definitely bring warmth and coziness into your gray home. Let’s get into it.
Before we get started, I just wanted to say that if you love gray wood-look floors, that is great. You have to embrace what you truly love to create a space that truly feels like yours, and just because something is no longer trendy doesn’t mean that you can’t have it in your home.
That said, decorating with gray laminates or similar flooring still presents its own challenges. The reason why they’re tricky to decorate with is that the material does not really exist naturally. The only time that you see it is in untreated timber that has been exposed to salt water or UV rays, and even then, how gray the material appears drastically varies from one wood to another. Therefore, most gray flooring is man-made, whether it’s vinyl flooring or laminate. This is where decorating gets difficult, as natural wood typically has warmer, more varied tones that add warmth and character to a space. In contrast, many man-made gray floorings lack these innate qualities, which can make rooms feel uninviting. You can see how marble flooring and, to an extent, concrete flooring, for example, are not as hard to work around because they are made from natural materials. This makes decorating with gray wood-look floors more challenging, as you’re working with a less dynamic and harder-to-complement base, but it can still be done.
The first step is to identify what type of gray flooring you have, as just like any warm or neutral timber, gray wood-look flooring runs the whole gamut. You can find it in all sorts of shades, from light white-gray to taupe gray, cool blue-gray, and even silver gunmetal gray. Plus, it comes in all sorts of grains, from light to heavy, as well as various undertones ranging from cool to warm. Once you have identified these, here are a few tips to guide you
If your flooring features a heavier grain, it is a good idea to balance it out with quieter finishes throughout the rest of the room, or at least have a buffer between the flooring and another heavily grained decor piece. This buffer could be a rug, wall, or shelf. Conversely, if your flooring has a lighter grain, you may opt for bolder finishes to add more visual interest.
If your gray flooring has cool undertones, pair it with white and subtle warm colors to create a harmonious look. On the other hand, if your gray flooring has warm undertones, you can decorate with deeper wood tones and saturated colors to complement the warmth.
This one should be pretty obvious, but I’ll say it again: don’t use gray for everything. The gray floor trend is even worse when the walls are gray, the furniture is gray, and then the decor is gray. As there is no contrast, everything just looks so sad. Now, I totally understand that many people love gray furniture, and I agree that it can look stunning on its own. But the problem is that you can’t choose gray furniture in isolation. It may look great on the screen and styled especially if there are neutral oak floors in the picture. But you have to imagine your space as a whole. If your home is already mainly gray, it won’t look as good as the photo. Your home needs some contrast. When it comes to adding in contrast, ideally, you want to use something warmer if possible. Now, this doesn’t mean that you have to use the warmest color that you can find. Even something like green or light cream can look really warm. This goes back to color basics: color exists in relationships and will appear warmer or cooler depending on what it is placed next to.
So the same white may look cool when placed next to warm timber but will look warm next to gray timber. I talk about this in much more detail in my course. If you’re interested, it’s linked down in the description box below. Before you go adding in any contrasting colors, figure out the undertone of your gray flooring and work from that. You don’t want a cool gray floor paired with anything that veers too yellow, just as you don’t want a warmer gray paired with anything too cool. Cool gray flooring should be paired with a taupe cream that veers a bit more gray rather than a regular cream, while warmer gray flooring should be paired with neutrals closer to beige than oyster rather than glacier.
Now, in terms of objects, I’ll add rugs first. They’ll cover up a large chunk of your gray flooring and create a contrast in texture, but more importantly, they’ll separate the floor tones and the furniture tones. The difference in color between flooring and furniture isn’t a big deal when you have neutral oak floors, but when gray wood or gray vinyl is involved, it is much more jarring to have warm and cool tones on top of each other without a buffer. I’ll suggest a rug in a neutral pattern or natural fiber rug like jute or seagrass so you have that nice transition. Then, continue with the furniture. Don’t choose anything in the same gray tone as the floor. Get something contrasting; that may be a green or blue couch or some furniture with oak or walnut accents. There needs to be some warmth along with the contrast. Even a simple white piece of furniture with warm wooden legs is significantly better than having everything in the same gray. If you’re struggling with decorating, check out our free decorating checklist and secrets to a beautiful home guide.
Tick the boxes as you’re decorating to improve the look and feel of your home. Opting for a warmer shade of window furnishings can also help with this, not only in looks but also in the light that is filtered through. Let me show you an example. The sun and sky during the day are on the cold spectrum, so everything you see during the day leans blue or colder.
Now, I’m going to take this light adjusted to 6,000 Kelvin and filter the light with these two different sheer curtains. Can you see the difference in the light that is filtered through both? It’s from the same source of light, but it will change what you see inside your space. This is what we did in one of our projects to help combat the very cold gray house. You can check out the makeover if you haven’t already. One thing to keep in mind is not to go overboard on the warm spectrum. A simple oak or birch paired with some greenery can really pop against a gray background, which is one of the advantages of working with gray. Remember that the difference between a cool-toned gray flooring and really warm timber can be quite jarring.
Paint will have the biggest impact on gray flooring, but I didn’t put this as my first point, as not everyone can paint their room. But if you’re in the position to do so and have dreaded all-gray interiors, painting your walls will have an instant impact. There’s no universal answer for what paint color you should choose, as it depends on many things, such as how much natural light enters your room, your room’s orientation, and what other finishes are present. But in general, you should warm up gray flooring with warm paint, as the problem is that the flooring is often too stark or too cold. And while my answer is to use warm paint, I don’t want you to go overboard as your typical warm beige paint will look too jarring against a cold gray floor. I find that light cream is a safe choice, something like Benjamin Moore’s Navajo White, Seashell, or Sherwin Williams’ Divine White or Ivory Lace. Alternatively, a good hack is to choose a one-off color that has a bit of gray in it, like a muted olive green paint or something classic like beige. Again, don’t take my recommendation as a blanket approach. Test the paint first; grab a sample ideally one made from real paint, not printed ink, and observe it under different lighting conditions. Also, observe it with a white border around the sample. I always do this as I don’t want the existing wall color to influence my perception of my new paint color because the old paint color won’t be in the equation.
Usually, an A4 piece of paper works really well for this. As I’ve talked about many times before, any color or wood tones you introduce need to be repeated throughout your space. Repetition will help create the cohesive and unified look you’re after, as you will tie all your different elements together in the room. I always find that the warmth of neutral wood like oak harmonizes beautifully with the cool tones of gray. So when you go to introduce some wooden furniture into your space, whether it’s a coffee table, dining table, or shelf, you need to echo these tones in smaller accents as well, such as trays, pendants, or frames throughout your room. The easiest way to do this is to match the undertones of the timbers, so even if they’re not the exact same color, they’ll tie in together nicely. The same goes with whatever color you choose to incorporate. Include a variety of the same color throughout your space so they tie in together nicely. You can repeat these colors anywhere, such as in your art, pillows, throws, and other decor pieces.
I’ve said this many times, but the same thing applies here. How you light your space will completely change how the space looks and feels, as light is what lets us see things. Remember your 5th-grade physics? So first things first: always layer your lighting.
Start with your overhead fixtures like pendants and recessed lights, and even more importantly, your floor lamps and table lamps with shades for general illumination. Then, add task lighting, such as desk lamps or under-cabinet lights, to support specific activities like reading. Lastly, add accent lighting to highlight architectural features or artworks. I also highly encourage you to use warm light with gray flooring, as it will completely change the ambiance of your space. Opt for warm white bulbs that range between 2,700 to 4,000 Kelvin, as they’ll emit a beautiful golden yellow light. You can also go lower, like 2,200 Kelvin, which I often do at night. I highly recommend using warm lights as they will help soften the cool undertones of gray and create a cozier atmosphere. It is true that gray flooring is going out of trend, but that doesn’t mean that your space is unsalvageable or doomed to look dated. Warm it up with furniture, decor, paint, and lighting, and remember to apply contrast and repetition so it ends up looking cohesive.
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