Looking for grey living room ideas? You’re in the right place.
We’re interior design fanatics and scoured the internet for the best ideas that’ll look great in any home. Read on to see our list and why we love each idea.
Looking for Grey Living Room Ideas?
While many people love bright splashes of color in their primary living spaces, monochrome and grey living room ideas prevail as some of the most popular.
It makes sense; it’s safer to pick a neutral color palette that you’re likely to still love years down the road.
Grey living room palettes also have the benefit of providing a calming but elevated backdrop for one of your most important living spaces.
Although grey is just one color, it has a wide variety of shades and uses within a living room that convey different moods, design visions, and overall effects.
Grey Living Room Ideas We Love
If you’re lacking inspiration for designing your grey living room, then look no further than our list below.
Classic, Modern Grey Living Room
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The monochromatic grey walls, curtains, and couch help to create a uniform-style foundation that the rest of this living room builds on.
The clean, modern touches, like the dark-stained wood tables, chrome accents, and subtle beige wall textures, look more cohesive because of the monochromatic grey palette.
Even though a grey living room might feel a bit dull during the design process, the foundational details of a room like this one really set the stage for an elevated look.
Whereas a room similar to this one done in all white might feel too up-tight, the grey makes this setting feel more intimate, cozy, and moody while still looking clean and structured.
Feminine Grey Living Room
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This particular shade of putty-grey makes a beautiful and soft backdrop for a more feminine living room with pink, gold, and marble accents.
All the components of luxury and class meet together with a refined and reserved color palette in this living room.
Let this living room be a great example demonstrating that you don’t have to go over the top to create a design that’s both comfortable and striking.
The color palette here makes use of two main colors without much deviation in tone: a soft, peachy pink and a beige-toned gray.
These colors, replicated on the walls, furniture, carpet, and even in the pillows, create a continuity of design that leaves the room feeling clean and fresh.
This paves the way for textured accents of bolder designs made from more eye-catching materials.
Chic Parisian Grey Living Room
Dariusz Jarzabek/Shutterstock
This oh-so-chic Parisian living room blends modern, clean lines with multiple shades of grey, marble, glass, and mirrors to create a grown-up, tastefully shiny effect.
With no accent colors, the boldness of a monochromatic palette is front and center.
Here, multiple shades of gray are used instead of other accent colors. While this seems boring on paper, in reality, it’s a bold and elevated design choice.
A very utilitarian and otherwise nondescript space gets a facelift: it comes across as effortlessly luxurious, with an old Hollywood meets modern effect.
If you’re worried about including lots of dark grays in a small space like this, take notes about the use of mirrors.
The light within the room gets maximized, and the space looks bigger and brighter without sacrificing a luxurious color palette.
Earthy Grey Living Room
Artazum/Shutterstock
In the other direction, a more nature-inspired grey living room, like this one with grey stone, hardwood, and fabric touches, creates a warm and comfortable environment where rustic balances modern.
Texture is the name of the game in this beautiful grey living room. The rough-hewn stone fireplace features multiple gray shades that draw the eye back and create dimensionality and an open concept.
The other foundational portions of the room have a rustic, earthy feel too. To replicate a look like this, choose natural textures and materials with a gray tone as much as you can.
A simple, grey sofa helps to tie together all the texture and keep things from looking messy, cluttered, or closed in.
Minimalist Grey Living Room
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This sleek, simple grey living room features our beloved color as an accent against cool beige foundation pieces.
The floor, sofa, walls, and some accent pieces are all varying shades of an unassuming, washed-out sort of beige color that makes the grey choices in the room stand out.
Minimalism is great when it comes time to dust, but it’s also a great way to present a visually appealing space that fosters a sense of calm and peacefulness.
If you want to make use of grey in your living space, don’t feel like you absolutely must have grey walls to achieve your design vision.
By playing with the continuity of color in your room, you can introduce one or two accent-type pieces as your focal points and introduce grey into your room in this way.
Warm Grey Living Room
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When warm-tone grey is front and center, even minimalistic accents like a rattan table and a metal side table can’t keep this living room from feeling warm, inviting, and cozy.
Unique, personalized touches also make this room welcoming. Grey is still a great choice for those who prefer warm colors to cool ones.
Because grey comes in a wide variety of shades and tones, a warmer choice like the one in the inspiration photo can help you achieve an effortlessly cool yet inviting room.
The temperature of many colors depends on what colors and accents they’re paired with.
Make sure to pair a warmer-toned grey with more warm colors and accents with texture and warm wood tones to keep your living space feeling comfortable and relaxing.
Scandinavian-Style Grey Living Room
Archi_Viz/Shutterstock
Don’t be afraid to pair grey with texture, pattern, and multiple-style accents for an eclectic end product like this one.
Multiple gray shades, patterns in the wall art and the rug, as well as both minimalist and maximalist touches, help create a highly individualized space.
Grey can be seen as the color of the masses, but no one can accuse a space like this of being cookie cutter.
Even when employing a commonly used color, you can inject your personality into every corner of the room.
While the main pieces of furniture and the rug are different shades and patterns of grey, the white walls and otherwise mostly black and white color palette keep all the details from becoming overwhelming or making the room feel closed in.
Modern Eclectic Grey Living Room
Mixphotos/Shutterstock
On the other hand, you can use dark and moody grey on the walls and still achieve an eclectic and personalized look.
While there’s not a ton going on in this room, each piece that’s a part of it makes a statement, making the room feel complete without needing too many accents.
If you want to create a moody, understated effect in your grey living room, follow this formula: dark grey walls, unique light fixtures, a textured rug, and classic furniture.
Without much effort, you’ll have a stunning room that looks like it belongs in a magazine. Sometimes, people can get intimidated by the idea of eclectic styling.
It’s been misrepresented as always involving bright and mismatched colors and a cacophony of styles that can be garish.
True eclectic designs mix across styles to achieve a balance, and grey is the perfect grounding color to help bring that vision to fruition.
Cool-Toned Modern Grey Living Room
Mixphotos/Shutterstock
Another eclectic grey living room, this one introduces another major color player in the blue walls.
With a wide palette including brown, bronze, black, grey, marble, and copper accents, this room still achieves a consistent style where nothing looks out of place or overdone.
The reason that this works comes back to cool and warm tones. The cool tone of the grey sofa is what pulls this entire look together.
The blue in the walls, the grey of the sofa, and all the other neutrals have a continuous, cool undertone that sets the mood for the living space.
Beyond that, introducing texture and small patterns in small quantities, as well as small pops of color in selected accents, keeps the room from feeling stuffy and cold and lends a playful feel instead.
Mid-Century Modern Grey Living Room
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Like any good mid-century modern design, this room pairs a smooth, elevated shade of grey with several pops of emerald green as a contrast.
With most of the other accents and components of the room matching in style and color, the real focal point is the pop of color.
Mid-century modern style is known for its use of jewel tones to inject color into an otherwise neutral room.
Here, grey plays a supporting role, but make no mistake: it is what makes this room. Three different shades of grey are used for the walls, the couch, and the display dresser.
However, with the complementing green accent wall and sofa furnishings, the different grey tones create a solid foundation for the design vision.
In fact, the longer you look at this photo, the more details you’ll notice. The unique style of the chairs and the side table, the molding on the walls, the different textures of the pillows.
However, all of these details have continuity and don’t stand out as clutter because of the use of grey in the background.
Things to Consider
When choosing grey living room ideas as inspiration for your own living space designs, you’ll want to keep in mind some of the unique aspects of your space that may affect where and how you choose to use grey.
- Lighting: Does your room have a lot of natural light or only a little? Remember that reflective surfaces and lighter tones are better for naturally darker rooms.
- Size: Smaller rooms don’t necessarily mean that you can’t make a bold statement, but you should consider a minimalistic or monochromatic style that won’t overwhelm the space.
- Texture: Bringing in texture, whether in the form of fabric materials or natural elements, is a great way to bring grey tones as well as personality into your living room to help it feel multidimensional and complete.
- Style: All design styles can look stunning in shades of grey. But considering the overall effect you want to achieve can help you know how and where to utilize grey most effectively in your space.
- Mood: Although you may love cooler grey tones, consider whether you will feel uplifted and calm in a room of cool tones. Living rooms are multi-purpose rooms that are for relaxing and socializing, so be sure your color palette helps you set the stage.
What’s Your Favorite Grey Living Room Idea?
Grey often gets unfair treatment as a common or boring color. However, it’s an incredibly versatile color that comes in an endless supply of shades suited to each individual.
Grey is also a great living room choice because it can stand alone in a monochrome palette. Or, it can support another brighter color by serving as a background shade.
If you want a sophisticated, modern, and unique living room space, then incorporating grey into your design choices is an absolute must.
Although some consider neutrals as safe, shades of grey invite drama and personality into any living room design.
Consider the unique aspects of your space while choosing where and how to use grey to achieve your specific design vision.
With a little research and inspiration, you’ll end up with a living room that you’re proud of for years and years to come.