A good neutral paint is something that any budding decorator must have in their arsenal. It's all well and good knowing which bold colours will work well on the walls or joinery, but what's really tricky is finding a colour that you can always rely on to act as a quiet, but beautiful backdrop to any room. It is not necessarily white or off-white, but a colour which allows furniture, art or textiles to sing. If you're anything like me, you will have a hard time knowing which colours will create a subtle sense of atmosphere and which will steal the show. Which is why we turned to some of our favourite interior designers to let us in on their most trusted neutral paint colours – the ones they turn to time and time again to make a space feel light and sophisticated.
Lonika Chande
I love the architectural series by Paint & Paper Library. The paint comes in varying strengths, which is great when looking for a neutral woodwork or ceiling colour that works well with the walls. I love the Sand series. ‘Sand III’ is a lovely warm off white that works well in a variety of settings, though I also like ‘Clay’, which has a slightly yellow undertone.
Other neutral paints I use a lot include ‘Off White’ and ‘School House White’, both by Farrow and Ball. There’s something timeless about them, and despite being neutral paints, they have a certain depth and warmth which works well, particularly, in larger open plan spaces.
Lucinda Griffith
Fenwick and Tilbrook do a beautiful colour called ‘Winter Acorn’ which is the colour of a perfectly cooked shortcrust pastry. It’s a wonderful foil for pictures and furniture, be it painted or antique, and is strong enough in tone to carry either bolder fabrics or just a neutral without being too scary for clients who are afraid of rooms becoming too dark. In the same sort of palette I like Farrow & Ball's ‘Stirabout’ which has a pink tone running through it and is never the same from one house to the next but does add warmth to a space without darkening it.
In case those count as ‘off whites’ then ‘Biscuit’ and ‘Savage Ground’ by Farrow & Ball are great for when people don’t want a colour but do want a strength in the walls. It works brilliantly with either an off white for woodwork or a contrasting dark woodwork like ‘Green Smoke’ or ‘Cola’. I would also use Graphenstone's ‘Lovat’ which is a muddy sort of green. It has a great warmth to it but will alter with the light so that it isn’t too definitively one colour.
Tom Bartlett, Waldo Works
I love Little Greene's ‘China Clay’. It is a great warm neutral, and perfect for a guest room. I often pair it with a navy blue or oxide red, which works well as it's got a touch of pink to it as it's based on raw ceramic clay from Cornwall's clay country.
Charlotte & Angus Buchanan
‘Slaked Lime’ by Little Greene is the neutral we return to again and again in our projects at Buchanan Studio. It’s essentially an ‘off-white’ but it comes in three grades of light/dark so that it can be used to achieve a calm, not overly bright white in most settings, whether the space has an abundance of natural light, or is windowless. Our own home is painted in it top to bottom.
Patrick Williams, Berdoulat
One of my favourites is Atelier Ellis’s ‘Waving & Smiling’ - a welcoming, warm and immersive colour that chimes with body and soul. It works well in a space that has soft pinks, greens and deep reds. It has plenty of personality, but sits peacefully in the background, almost like a good base line in a song - you wouldn’t notice it’s missing until it’s taken out of the mix.
Emma Ainscough
Edward Bulmer’s ‘Celadon’ is a wonderful base layer to create a really calming space – I particularly love using it in bedrooms, it feels really fresh all year round. Closer to the white end of the spectrum, Farrow & Ball’s ‘Dimity’ is a great soft neutral, best used in bedrooms, dressing rooms, and bathrooms to give a soft feminine edge to a space without the walls taking centre stage.
James Mackie
I return to ‘Canvas’ from Paint & Paper Library’s architectural range more than any other neutral. It reacts well in most light conditions and aspects and tones well with the kind of palette I often work in. Typically I turn to it for ceilings and joinery but most recently I used it for the panelled staircase of an early 18th-century house in Spitalfields that we are currently working on. It is available in five shades which makes it possible to create a sophisticated yet nuanced effect by picking out the different elements of a space whilst retaining a unified whole.
Anahita Rigby
The walls of the sitting room of a project I recently completed in Marylebone is Farrow and Ball's ‘Wimborne White’. I used it in this room because it had a touch of yellow, which helps to make the room feel warm. Even though the room is south facing, there are very large trees outside which in the summer add a green tone to the room, so Wimborne was the perfect base.
I also love the colour ‘Cinnamon’ by Edward Bulmer, it’s a rich and sophisticated colour that looks great with dark wooden antiques. When I am looking for a colour to act as a neutral, I turn to ‘Bronze Red’ by Little Greene – I believe it’s the perfect deep red, and I recently used it for a music room in a Kensington project.
Patrick O'Donnell, Brand Ambassador, Farrow & Ball
‘Light Blue’ is the perfect backdrop colour which has a brilliant, shifting complexity reading silver grey to soft blue and then greener notes when doused in sunlight. I’ve used it in nearly every house I’ve lived in and believe it works best in west-facing rooms where all these colour idiosyncrasies have chance to play out. There is a delightful softness to ‘Light Blue’ and takes on punches of colour from deeper blues, mid browns and shocks of wine red.
I'm such a fan of ‘Mouse’s Back’ – it's the most versatile of our mid-browns. The joy of this colour is the sheer flexibility of application from exterior paint work (looks heaven with lime render) a safe and trusted kitchen cabinet colour for a timeless look through to the jolly practical colour of choice for a boot room. It’s a drab shade but super calming and happy to be softened when partnered with a delicate, earthy pink.
Tiffany Duggan
When a calm backdrop is required, my go-tos are Farrow & Ball's 'Skimming Stone', the Leather range by Paint & Paper Library, ‘Cloth’, ‘Bone’, ‘Shell’ and ‘Quill’, ‘Cotta’ and ‘Sabi Grey’ by Atelier Ellis. For me, these are the neutrals that layer brilliantly with pattern and colour, creating schemes which all are both uplifting and restful in equal measure.
