A huge thank you to Behr for providing paint for this project. As always, my opinions are completely honest and my own.
We’re moving full speed ahead with our playroom makeover. The biggest recent milestone was finishing the wall-to-wall built-in shelving, which transformed the room’s layout and storage. After all that carpentry, I was just as excited to finally get paint on the walls—white primer had overstayed its welcome and I was one marker away from decorating everything with stick figures.
Choosing wall paint still makes me nervous. There’s nothing worse than spending days rolling paint only to realize you dislike the color once the room is finished. I used to stubbornly live with bad choices rather than admit defeat, but now I follow a simple, repeatable process that helps me pick the right gray every time.
Gray can be especially tricky: some grays read warm with beige undertones, others read cool with blue hints. The goal is to find a balanced gray that suits your space—think of it like finding the perfect pair of jeans that fits comfortably and makes you feel great. Here are the four practical steps I use when choosing gray paint for a room makeover.
- Browse color swatches.
Start by looking at multiple swatches side by side. Seeing different hues next to one another makes it much easier to spot warm versus cool undertones and narrow down a family of grays you like.
- Do visual research for inspiration.
Search for photos of rooms painted in grays to get a sense of which shades designers favor and how those colors read in real spaces. Don’t rely on a single image or your screen to match color perfectly—digital photos can be misleading—but let them guide which swatches to try in person.
- Test with sample paint pots.
Never purchase gallons without testing. Spend on sample pots (around $15 each is worth it) and paint large swatches on your walls or on white poster board. I once tried nine different samples for one room. The painted samples can look very different from the printed card—colors that appear slightly blue or warm on the sample card often read differently on your wall.
- Observe your lighting throughout the day.
Check your paint samples at various times—morning, midday, and evening—and on different walls. Natural light, number of windows, and adjacent spaces affect how a gray registers: a shade that looks airy in a sunlit playroom may read noticeably darker down a dim hallway.
For our playroom, after testing multiple options we chose Seagull Gray in Behr Premium Plus Ultra with an eggshell finish. It covered beautifully in one coat and gives the room a cool gray tone that isn’t blue. I wanted to keep the space light and open since the playroom flows into the upstairs hallway and stairway, so a lighter gray was ideal.
The color reads slightly differently in areas with less natural light; in the hallway it looks a touch darker, which is expected. Overall, the result is subtle and soft—not dramatic—so it complements the built-ins and keeps the space feeling welcoming rather than heavy.
Have you found a gray you love, or do you have a favorite paint-picking trick? I’d love to hear recommendations—especially go-to gray paint names that behave well in different lighting. I’ll share more playroom progress during the One Room Challenge updates later this week, and you can follow along on my Instagram stories for real-time photos.
