I’m currently working on a three-bedroom apartment renovation project in Southbank, Melbourne. The apartment gets a lot of natural light so I’m keen to paint the walls grey. Anything other than white. Here’s how I chose the best grey wall paint colour for a client.
Interior style goal and brief
When we started the brief stage of the interior design process finding out my client’s interior style goal was interesting.
Initially they said they wanted a Japanese aesthetic. But when I showed them kitchens with Japanese interior design elements, it didn’t resonate.
Even if a client shows me their own inspo pics I ask them to do a quick interior style quiz. This revealed a bit about their preferences. Namely, that wanted a Modern kitchen that was both earthy and luxe.
But they wanted to maintain Japanese interior design philosophy such as minimal and streamlined.
When we started to discuss a colour scheme, they wanted to explore pastel colours. Why? Because the clients loved Hello Kitty. Inspiration for colour scheme can come from anywhere.
This was enough guidance to start my process in narrowing down grey colours for the walls.
Which pastel grey colour
When I started researching pastel grey colours, I started to search for powder blue colours such as Dulux Powder Blue Quarter, Radar Quarter and Penna Quarter.
Then I used the Dulux tool where they suggested similar colours and that’s when I started to see some suitable pastel greys.
Such as Brume Half, Paramount Design and Bleaches. I ordered samples and then waited for the other samples to arrive.
Samples such as cabinetry and tiles. When considering a particular colour, knowing the surrounding colours and materials is important. As is looking at sample under different light conditions. Light being colour’s best friend.
Final selection for a grey wall paint colour
I received the samples for the kitchen splashback. The client said they wanted a marble look pattern in line with their luxe style goal.
Specifically, I chose a marble look with gold veining because the client wanted a minimal kitchen with finger pull cabinets, there was limited opportunity to add gold, that is a luxe element to the kitchen, which is usually added through the hardware.
So, once I decided on the splashback, I put Paramount Design and Bleaches next to this sample. Initially I was going to specify Paramount Design as it looks lighter, that is more pastel.
But next to the warm gold vein of the splashback Paramount Design looked bluer. Whereas Bleach, although darker, looked more grey and warmer. Which worked well with the warmth of the gold and beige tones of the marble look splashback.
So, the final selection was for Bleaches as the grey wall paint colour for this project. Showing the clients all the samples together and talking through my interior design rationale helped them to understand this selection and why it was the best grey wall paint colour for them.
If you’re interested in choosing a grey colour for your walls, you can find out how to choose the right grey paint colour here.
