Thanks, Beverly. I get paralyzed when I start looking at neutrals. I've been so anti-neutral up 'til now, I'm not really sure how to choose them. I do fine with color but now want a neutral, clean palette, especially after visiting new model homes in our community.

Of course gray is a trend right now, but I personally think it is a good, neutral trend even though I have NO gray. It works with a lot of colors, just like the earthy beiges before that did and just like the various shades of greens before that. I still have a lot of tans and greens and soft yellows in my house and have not grown tired of them. As Beverly said, Greige and shades of white are great compromises.

Most pretty colors become trends....because a LOT of people like them when they are splashed all over the decorating sites.

I have always been 10-15 years behind on the trends and missed out on a lot of them (thank goodness) like seafoam green and peach, hunter green and burgundy, etc. Unfortunately I did get in on the country rose and blue and thought I would NEVER get rid of that color and all it's "matching" accessories right down to the little rose bud wallpaper :). I am just glad that I did not have time to jump on the red/green/mustard yellow combination even though I liked it at the time and really wanted to go in that direction. Color trends like that are hard to get away from once you have an entire house decorated around them.

One other thing I mean to say - I admire those who can pull off a lot of color (deep/bright/or saturated), but I DO NO HAVE THE TALENT FOR THAT!

I love color too, but so much easier to go neutral and add the pop with accessories.

My typical style is monochromatic...maybe too dull for some.

I'm loving grey lately and will probably redo our master bdrm from ol' Navajo white to some shade of pale soft grey.

I do think grey has been a trend and that it is likely nearing the end of the cycle. But what do I know? If you love grey, go for it. If you don't, I'd personally at least take a look at some whites.

Grays can be really pretty as a wall color, especially if you use a flat paint but I think it depends on the shade you use and how much light you have in the room. You can also do monochromatic with white walls and bring the gray in with accessories.

I don't know that grey as a background color is ever particularly out of style. My mother's old decorating books from the 1950s and 1960s had some grey rooms. Kohler introduced their first grey fixtures in the 1950s and there have been greys in every decade since. And fixtures are pretty permanent, so while it may be more trendy right now, I don't know that it will ever be out of style, particularly if the whole palette is not grey. As a wall color it could serve as a background for a number of color updates.

I think you should paint your home in colors you like, no matter the trend. Use the colors that give you peace and relax you.

I used gray more than 20 years ago. White more than 30 years ago. And I'm returning to white :)

Why not put together a palette that is not strictly gray but has some. Gray, taupe, cream and white mix really well. I've even seen lavender thrown in that kind of mix.

Our first house, bought and renovated to the studs in 1986 sported cream walls, gray carpeting, and gray bathroom fixtures and tile. White tile floor. It has been a rental since we moved out in 1991 and the gray carpet was replaced with beige for awhile, then to greige. The bath still looks ok.

My mother had gray in a LR in the late 50's and in a different house in early 60's. I don't know that it is the colors fault but more what people use with the gray that makes it whatever trend is predominate at the moment.

I have a dark blue-gray in my new house currently because it is the only color that didn't compete badly with what was going on outside the very many windows. I have pretty pastoral views with sky 360 around the house and went through about 25 colors until I finally settled on the gray and white.

So in answer to your question I am 57 and have had some version of gray on and off in a home for most of that time. The décor colors I grew tired of quickly were the boring beiges and their ilk.

Don't over think it. We painted the living room and dining room pale gray in the early 80s. Switched to a deep taupe 20 years later. Main bath has gray fixtures. Thought about switching to white when we do a mini reno later this year, but decided to work with them instead. Gray will always be "in".

Some grays are very nice...depending on where they are used and the amount of natural light in a room. Folks jump on the band wagon and paint everything gray without considering that. Many gray rooms remind of a cloudy day.

I'm another lover of gray and have used it for decades and find it a very useful and easy to work with neutral.

I read Apartment Therapy (AT) daily and they recently had a post from Sherwin Williams (SW). SW pays to have a color search feature on AT where you can pull photos of rooms with the color you want. This post listed the 3 top colors that users have looked for using this tool from over a million searches in 2015. I think AT has a slightly different audience than GardenWeb/Houzz - they tend to be a little younger, more urban and more likely to rent apartments. The top three colors were 1. Gray (mid and dark grey), 2. Sky blues/minty green/light turquoise and number 3. Pale yellow and goldenrod.

Seems to me if gray is number one on this list then it's not going away any time soon. I always find mixing some similar neutrals is more sophisticated and richer, especially when doing a monochromatic room - along with texture.

Gray *was* the trend, but now it seems to be on the wane in all areas of home decor~upholstery, paint, cabinetry, etc. I think it was very popular in 2014. I've used a warm tan thruout my home, and after 7 yeats, still haven't tired of it. I prefer staying power, so am not one to follow trends.

Have you considered taupe or antique white?

I like the look of some rooms in gray, but pretty generally, if I think about living with it, no. It is just too cold for me. I prefer the warmer colors...probably because I live where it's cold much of the year. Perhaps if I were in the south, I'd feel differently.

Thanks for all the feedback. Your posts illustrate well that gray has a timelessness to it that I had not considered.

I currently have my music room done in BM Kendall Charcoal - quite by accident as my local BM store had made it for a customer who decided they didn't want it. Already paid for so I was charged way below retail. I love it so I guess I will build from there going with a lighter gray and whites palette as I slowly repaint the house. DH is going to love this. (not)

I was at a model home a few weeks ago and learned that the entire house was done in 3 colors: PPG Synchronicity, Artillery, Desert Dune and Off White for trim, doors & ceilings. I absolutely fell in love with the walls and feeling of airiness (never mind that the house has soaring ceilings and giant wall windows throughout a house 3x the size of mine!).

Because of the different ways in which the house was accessorized and its position relative to natural light, each room had a different dimension to it.

EDIT:

Patty cakes - I still haven't ruled out antique whites. Taupe - not so much as in our community if your house isn't all gray'd, it's all tauped. Sometimes, it's like walking into a Pottery Barn catalog around here. :)

All I know is that whatever I go with this time is going to have to stay for several years so I'm taking my time to really see what feels good to me.

After several talks with DH since I originally wrote the text above (and submitted minutes ago), we've decided that despite the style of this house (cookie cutter interior/exterior in a masterplanned community), I am going back to what I know and love and that is Spanish Revival style and that means finding the right whites.

I've been dying to use BM Abalone so may do a wall in the music room since it feels like a dark cave right now with 4 walls in Kendall Charcoal. I also want to use BM Papaya but I think it seems to have a yellowish-green cast in our house (although hard to tell since BM Rattan is currently our main color).

Sorry for the ramble - none of my friends get into this and their eyes glaze over when I start talking paints. :)

-B

Beverly, your second picture is TO DIE FOR! You are a photo-finding genius. Truly!

Used to like gray. Now I am so sick of it. We are shopping for a home and gray is apparently the new go to color for sellers updating prior to sale. I cringe when I walk in to yet another gray home.

Beige and tan colors were all over for decades before grey came into play. I think it has some time yet.

Navajo white was the basic boring apartment grade paint for years. It is hard to read about it as a popular color....but then again I keep hearing brass is coming back.

Yes, grey has been around for a while, and some people are starting to tire of it. But I remember when it came "in". I saw some photos of a grey room and thought "Oh, that's so fresh and pretty!" I suspect a lot of people did that. As of yet, nothing has come out as the "new" neutral, so until that does, grey is still *it*.

Keep in mind that as people into decor enough to be on this board, we're going to notice trends and tire of them long before the general public. I had a painter tell me just last week that grey is NEW.

Gray seems to be very popular in kitchens, because it looks good with the marble. If you think marble will be around for a while....than gray probably will, too.

Personally, I don't like gray inside. Outside (stone) looks nice, though. Gray is too dreary (IMHO) but we don't have sunny winters. Tan seems to go better with our wood tones, but my mom has always loved gray.

I think it really depends on your other finishes and color preferences :)

Interestingly enough, I took my 7 yr old son with me to tour the 11 new model homes in our community and his observation of the "gray" house I fell in love with a couple of weeks ago? "Why do the walls look dark and dirty today?". Out of the mouths of babes. I so adamantly wanted those colors that the builder PR director emailed them to me earlier this week. The feel is dramatically different on a bright sunny day vs today's overcast skies.

While I realize that every paint color can look dramatically different throughout the day and in different spaces, I wasn't feeling these colors at all today.

I'm looking at BM Capri Coast again. A couple of years back, I liked it but didn't think it had enough color. Papaya is looking to yellow/green in the different rooms I've painted swatches of it with.

Have you looked at SW Agreeable Gray or BM Edgecomb Grey? The seem warmer than the more bluish greys.

I really love the cool neutral Sherwin Williams Perfect Greige 6073 pallet. Almost like a very milky milk chocolate gray. I have large walls in the mid tone (Perfect Greige). An accent wall in my kitchen and my fireplace area is in Turkish Coffee and my hallways/entry are in the lighter Popular Gray. all my wood trim is high gloss bright white. All blend easily and depending on light, can look very different or almost the exact same color.

I rotate art around my house, throw out different color pillows and maybe a new throw and it always coordinates fine with the wall color!

Go with your heart.

Lavender, I also am not a fan of gray inside. And yet, the exterior of my house is gray and I love it. Next time it gets painted, I'll again go with gray, perhaps even darker. Maybe it's all the bright light outside. It never looks dreary.

I am definitely more of a greige lover. I used sw accessable beige in many parts of my house. It definitely is a greige. Most of the time I see a muted beige with a tiny bit of gray green undertones. I love it!

Well, I've gone completely off in the other direction! Our living areas are currently painted in BM Rattan - I love the color. However, everything I buy has to coordinate with this and it leaves me stifled.

I'm going back to what I've always loved which is what we had in our 1929 Spanish bungalow in San Diego. Our former home - 1929 Spanish Bungalow Living Room & Dining area adjacent to living room. It was very much a work in progress then and we had to many plans but ended up moving out of state to be closer to family.

Our current house is a cookie cutter brick in a master-planned community and I've resisted trying to make it what I truly want because the house architecture doesn't really lend itself to Spanish bungalow. But, I've been unhappy with everything else so as babbs50 above suggested, I'm going to go with my heart.

Went and picked up a sample of Mascarpone and I love it. When I finally get around to starting this project, I will post!

We used three grays throughout our house and I have lived with them for a year. They are a little boring IMO. But, a lot of this impression is due to my not finding the right accents to use on them. What worked on my warm colored walls in the past does not work on these walls as well. Gray screams for vibrancy to offset it. Here's a little corner I am pleased with-

While i'm not a lover of gray, I once went to an estate sale where I found out the owner was an enterior designer. He was very consistent, using the same color thruout the home. The walls were a medium stone gray with doors/trim/crown being a couple of shades lighter~it was beautiful! Even though everything was organized in 'estate sale style', you could still see the two story older condo was definitely upper end including the traditional high end traditional furnishings. And I always thought gray was contempoary, but there wasn't a shread of it in this house. Classy thru and trru.

Last year we repainted our downstairs (Living room, family room, dining & kitchen) in BM's Ashley Gray, a very warm gray. We LOVE it! It was quite a process choosing the perfect color for us, as I tried 12 samples before I made up my mind.