It felt smooth between my fingertips, hardly pigmented at all. Soft dove grey, Wickes paint chip 4B7. Online it had looked different.
Dimly lit by my laptop screen, I’d picked it out weeks ago ready to go – but now it didn’t look like that. It looked amazing. I was standing in the middle of Wickes at 9.30 on a Tuesday morning surrounded by people pretending to browse while clutching coffee cups.
I asked myself if this colour was going to make my bathroom calm or clinical, relaxing or drab. Fast forward two years.
Allow me to introduce you to my beauty.
Top tip: if you’re going to paint your bathroom grey, the best place to buy paint is probably Wickes. Fair warning – grey wasn’t my first choice for the bathroom. It feels like cheating when everything looks good against grey, doesn’t it?
I’d originally wanted something richer, like forest green or maybe even navy. After renovating three bathrooms (two successful, one horrifying) I’ve realised that the colours you think you want for your home aren’t always the ones you actually want to wake up to every day. Green can look muddy, navy makes watermarks more obvious.
But grey? It just works. Grey itself comes in so many shades – maybe fifty variations on the theme that all look like neutrals until you really start to look at them.
Warm greys with brown tones that make your white towels pop. Cool greys with blue tones that look incredible with brass accessories. Deep charcoal greys that aren’t black but will fool anyone who says ‘it looks black to me’.
The undertones create totally different feels, and when you start looking for them you can’t unsee them. Mine is what I like to think of as “layered grey.” That might sound like I’ve spent ages making it complicated but really I just mean that different parts of my bathroom are different greys. My walls are painted in Farrow & Ball Pavilion Gray (yes I bought the expensive paint.
Don’t @ me it was worth it). It’s a sort-of greige colour that looks warm in some lights and cool in others. The floor tiles are slate grey with tiny flecks that help disguise dirt without being stubborn to clean.
And then the vanity is painted a grey-blue that I mixed myself after buying tester pots from three different brands until I got it right. Lesson number one: grey will show you everything and nothing all at once. Stains and dirt seem to disappear against grey tiles when they’d be glaringly obvious on white.
Conversely, bright white accessories like towels and chrome taps scream against grey walls. It hides the dirt but somehow highlights everything else. Another thing I wish I’d known?
Don’t match your greys too closely. When I first painted my bathroom, I chose one grey and tried to use different shades of it throughout. Walls, tiles, shower curtain – you name it, I matched it to that one paint chip.
The end result looked flat and, well, boring. Grey can take centre stage in your bathroom if you want it to, but mostly it works best as part of a considered colour palette. Those crisp white towels I was telling you about?
Necessary. That brass mirror frame that reflects the bathroom window? Magic.
Additions like plants – I have a snake plant on my windowsill that I basically never water – liven up a grey space beautifully. Grey is also really practical. Especially if you’ve got kids.
You Might Also Like
Mine are experts at using the bathroom as a paddling pool and trust me, if grey hides dirt I’ve never seen it. I have a friend who painted her downstairs bathroom navy and whilst it looked amazing… let’s just say that raincloud baths leave noticeable fingerprints. Grey won’t know you’ve been.
But that’s kind of the point – grey really is the gift that keeps on giving when it comes to bathrooms. Or kitchens. Or hallways.
Once you start looking at grey, you’ll see it everywhere and it always looks amazing. It’s versatile enough to allow you to update decor with little changes – swap your bright white towels for yellow in the summer or rich scarlet for winter. Want to refresh your bathroom without painting?
As long as you’re hanging up a new shower curtain you can let grey do the heavy lifting. Pale pink floral? Go for it.
Feathery grasscloth? Sure, why not. My mum came to visit when we first moved in and she spent some time in the bathroom before remarking that it looked “expensive.” Half of it wasn’t.
The tiles were three pounds each from the clearance section of my local tile shop, the vanity unit was from IKEA and I painted it myself (hence the/navy colour option above) and the mirror is from a charity shop. Everything else just looks cohesive thanks to that grey wall. It instantly ups the… Possibly one of the most important things about greying your bathroom is the lightbulbs.
I didn’t realise how grey washes out under warm white light until I did it. My bathroom looked muddy and boring, particularly when I woke up to it on chilly winter mornings. Swapping the bulbs for daylight ones (about 4000K if you’re interested) made all the difference.
It went from lacklustre to looking freshly painted again. Was it worth spending £30 on five new lightbulbs? You betcha.
The other thing I didn’t expect? Grey seems to change colour as the day goes on. In the morning when the natural light from my frosted window floods in, my walls almost look lilac.
Later in the day when the strip lights are on they’re more taupe. Bit like having mood grey without the pinterest account. Also worth mentioning is how long-lasting grey really is.
Colours come and go but when I look at pictures of friends’ houses and spot a bathroom that was green two years ago, it instantly looks dated. Grey just gets smarter with age. My bathroom looks fresh off the DIY magazine now, but will probably still look good in another five years’ time.
Honestly, if you’re thinking about painting your bathroom grey my advice is to get samples.
BIG samples. Paint large sections of your wall and live with them for a week.
See them in the morning light. See them at night. Look at every shade of grey like you’re trying to find your soulmate – because you sort of are.
Pale greige? Will look beige in some bathrooms. Cool grey-blue?
Will make your-totally-not-white towels look grey. Don’t be afraid to experiment until you find the perfect cashmere-wrap-for-your-bathroom. Grey may be humble, but in my opinion it’s also pretty perfect.
