23 Designer-Approved Living Room Paint Colors (2026)

In the spring of last year, I was standing in a living room with seventeen paint samples, all of which were wrong. The room was in good shape, had decent furniture and lots of light. Three failed attempts to paint the walls had left them in a color the homeowner described “the interior of a sad sitting room.” Does this sound familiar?

It is difficult to choose the perfect living room paint colour. There are many options, not because they’re bad, but simply because there are so many. Most guides only show pretty pictures, without explaining why or for whom a particular color is good. Today, that changes.

I’ve watched paint colors work and fail in actual rooms with real lighting. These 23 designer-approved paint colors for living rooms are in a serious mood right now. Each one includes honest advice on where to use it, what it goes with, and how long you should stick with it.

Learn More, Shabby Chic Bedroom Ideas for a Cozy 

Wasabi Green

A Fresh Color No One Expects: Wasabi Green is a perfect blend of yellow-green, sage and wasabi. It adds a botanical, herbal energy to a room that isn’t as stuffy as darker greens. It changes throughout the day and never feels flat.

Best Places to Use It: This colour is best used in living rooms with strong sunlight, especially those facing south or west. Combine it with wood tones in natural shades, brass hardware that is not lacquered, and soft furnishings of cream color. This combination was practically created for rooms with linen sofas, rattan accents, and other accessories.

Designer tip: Use Wasabi only on one feature wall if your living room faces the north. In low light it will make all four walls look muddy, gray-green and a mess.

Highlight: Benjamin Moore Wasabi 2147-40 is the perfect tone. It will cost between $60 and $80 per gallon in early 2025 for the Aura Interior Line. The paint covers well with two coats, and its vibrant color does not fade.

Oyster white

Warm White that Actually Works: This is something that most paint guides won’t say out loud. Plain white is almost always the wrong answer for a family room. However, oyster white is almost always the best choice. It has just the right amount of warmth, so that it feels finished and not unfinished.

The Best Places to Use It: Small Living Rooms Benefit Hugely From This Color. It can be used to reset furniture in rental properties with bold or outdated pieces. It instantly improves any room that requires a lighter, larger feel without using aggressive colors.

Designer tip: In early 2023, I painted the living room of a 320 square foot apartment in oyster white. The client thought that someone had knocked down the wall. The only thing that changed was the paint.

Spotlight on Farrow & Ball’s All White, No.2002 is a warm white that looks like oysters in warm lighting. It is well worth the premium price. White Dove OC-17 by Benjamin Moore is a great option for a lower cost.

 Harbor Haze Blue

A Blue that Works in Any Room: Harbor Haze Blue is closer to gray-blue than traditional sky blue. This gives it the sophistication to be used outside of coastal and beach themed interiors. This isn’t the beach house blue. This is a blue that feels calm and considered.

The Best Places to Use It: This color works best in open-plan living spaces because it blends seamlessly into adjacent areas without clashing with the neighboring colors. Combine it with soft linen fabrics and warm white trim for an airy, clean result.

Designer tip: The color is equally vibrant in both morning and evening light, which you may not have thought possible. Blues can look great at noon but depressing by 8pm. Harbor Haze is good all day.

Product Spotlight Benjamin Moore Harbor Haze 2136-60 is a consistent seller for good reasons. It looks different in every room, but almost always looks beautiful.

 What’s everyone reading (Deep Library Red).

Dramatic Color Worth The Risk: This warm, deep red is one of those colors that looks terrifying in a sample pot but transformative when it’s on the wall. This deep, warm red is reminiscent of old library walls or rooms where people have real conversations. It’s dark enough to make a room feel intimate, but not too dark.
The Best Places to Use It: Formal Living Rooms, Reading Nooks, and Smaller Living Spaces where the goal is a cocooning atmosphere. This color is a commitment. This color is not for the half-hearted.
Designer tip: Do not use cool LED bulbs when painting a room this color. It will sing with warm incandescent lights or amber tones. Cool lighting makes deep reds look muddy and unflattering. This was a costly lesson I learned on a project that took place in late 2022.
Product Highlight: Farrow & Ball’s Rectory No.217, the gold standard of this color. Benjamin Moore Mulberry AF-190 has a similar depth but is priced lower.

Jack Pine Teal

The Urban Color: Jack Pine Teal is a color that lands somewhere between forest green and teal, with a blue undertone. It has definite depth. It’s got enough drama to be a statement, but it also has enough green to feel grounded and not cold.

Places where it works best: Lofts in urban areas, industrial-style rooms, and rooms with strong architectural features. This color looks better with exposed brick, concrete flooring, and metal lighting fixtures. It can stand up to textures that are more intense than softer greens.

Designer tip: This colour pairs well with warm accessories in terracotta or ochre. The cool teal with the warm earth tones makes a room feel global without being theme-based.

Product spotlight: Benjamin Moore Teal Ocean 2058-20 is a good choice for this color. Sherwin Williams’ Tidewater SW6477 has a slightly greener base.

Classic Gold

The Accent Wall That Everyone Is Afraid Of: Classic Gold Paint on Living Room Walls Sounds Risky Until You See It Done Correctly. It’s important to choose a gold that has enough brown to make it look like burnished metal, rather than just glitter. Consider aged brass instead of champagne flute.

Best Places to Use It: Behind a fireplace or sofa in traditional or maximalist rooms. Combine it with accessories in deep charcoal, forest green or brass. This combination is timeless and photographs well.

Designer tip: Choose a matte finish or eggshell over anything that has a sheen. Glossy walls with gold look theatrical. Matte gold is sophisticated and warm.

Product Highlight: Benjamin Moore Venetian Gold 2260-10 perfectly captures the tone. You can expect to pay between $65 and $75 per gallon to get a quality finish that doesn’t look streaky.

Blue Muscari

The Bold Colour That Changes the Frequency of a Room: Blue Muscari, named after the spring flower bulb, is a deep purple-blue. This color makes living rooms feel as if they are on a different scale. Dramatic, deliberate, and memorable.

Places It Works Best In: Formal Living Rooms and Spaces Where a Strong Design Statement is the Goal. Combine it with velvet cushions and warm wood shades. Don’t try to soften the color with too much light. Allow the color to have its full impact.

Designer tip: This colour requires good lighting. It will turn almost black in poorly lit rooms and lose its violet hue. Install warm lighting in multiple heights to avoid committing this color to all four walls.

Product spotlight: Farrow & Ball’s drawing room blue No.253 achieves the territory with its signature chalky finish which reads differently in each lighting condition.

Walnut Brown

Three years ago, color designers predicted the comeback of deep walnut brown in living room walls. For two decades, this shade was considered out-of-date. It is now back and looks better than ever. This is largely due to the shift in furniture trends towards lighter Scandinavian aesthetics, which provide a perfect contrast.

The Best Places to Use It: Living rooms for families with furniture and flooring in light colors. The combination of deep walnut walls, pale oak floors and cream upholstery creates a warm and inviting atmosphere.

Designer tip: This colour hides fingerprints and scuffs better than any other color on this list. This is important in homes where children or pets live. Practical beauty is often overlooked.

Spotlight on Product: Benjamin Moore Chocolate Mousse 2107-20 is right at home in this zone. The Regal Select Interior line can handle this level of color and provide a consistent, streak-free finish.

Sunny Yellow

The yellow that finally grew up: Sunny Yellow in a Living Room is not the nightmare primary-color design of the early 2000s. It’s a warm marigold, or golden chamomile. It has enough depth to feel sophisticated rather than cheerful-in-a-way-that-ages-badly.

Places where it works best: North facing rooms with little natural warmth and social or creative spaces that are geared towards energy. You can use it only on one wall and combine it with accents in charcoal gray or navy blue. The walls around it are warm off-white.

Designer Tip When using saturated yellows, the single-wall method is impossible to negotiate. You will be exhausted by all four yellow walls within a few weeks. One wall of yellow can energize a room for many years.

Product spotlight: Benjamin Moore Yellow Highlighter 2021-40 provides warmth without aggression. The Aura Interior line covers this color in only two coats.

Peach Blossom Pink

Peach Blossom Pink Is Not Blush: Peach Blossom Pink. It’s warmer with a hint of orange to make it feel vibrant and not insipid. It creates a sense of warmth in a living space that is impossible to replicate with cooler pinks.

The Best Places to Use It: Large living rooms and areas that are primarily used for entertaining. Combine it with terracotta accents, jute rugs and brass fixtures that are unlacquered for a look both modern and livable.

Designer tip: This colour works best in rooms with warm wood tones. Peach is a sweet color that can be interpreted as a childish shade without wood or other natural materials.

Product spotlight: Benjamin Moore Peach Parfait 2175-70 is a warm color that pairs well with White Dove OC-17 for trim and ceilings.

Paradise Green

The Vivid Colour That Demands Commitment Paradise Green is at the bolder end of the spectrum. It’s tropical, saturated and unapologetic. You cannot approach this color half-heartedly. If you use the color on all four walls it can create a truly uplifting atmosphere.

The best place to use it: Living rooms with high ceilings and a maximalist style. It needs space vertically to breathe. Combine it with neutral furniture and white trim. Let the walls do the talking.

Designer tip: Only use a matte finish. A vivid green of this saturation will look uneven and almost luminescent if it has a sheen.

Bluebelle

Colors that Change Throughout the Day: Bluebelle, a dusty periwinkle color between cornflower and lavender. Rarely do you find a color that can change so much in a single day. It leans towards violet in the morning light. In the afternoon sun, it appears almost blue-gray. In lamplight, it becomes lilac.

Best Places to Use It: In living rooms that are used mostly at night and in spaces with a relaxed aesthetic. Combine it with warm wood tones and whites.

Designer tip: Try this color out on a large poster board at three different times during the day before you commit. It’s not the variation that counts, but how you feel about all three variations.

Product spotlight: Benjamin Moore Misty Lilac (2071-70) captures this character wonderfully. The Gossamer blue 2123-40 is slightly cooler and works well in rooms with warm natural light.

Portofino Pink

Terracotta Pinks for All Styles: Portofino Pink is inspired by the sun-fading Italian Riviera facades. It’s a pink with terracotta undertones that appears neutral in certain lighting. This gives it a lot of versatility across different styles and decor.

Best Places to Use It: Living Rooms with Natural Materials and Warm-Toned Accessories. This color is equally at home with Mediterranean rattan furniture, modern sofas with clean lines, or traditional upholstered pieces.

Designer tip: This colour makes people feel happy the moment they enter a room. This effect is hard to achieve with beige or gray, so it shouldn’t be overlooked when selecting a color for an area meant for gathering.

 Chartreuse Ceiling

The Move that Transforms without Overwhelming : Keep the walls clean and warm white, while painting your ceiling chartreuse. The result transforms the living room without being overwhelming. The eye is drawn up in the most delightful and unexpected way.

Best suited for: Living room with ceilings higher than nine feet and minimal crown moulding. It is important to give the color vertical space in order for it to feel deliberate and not oppressive.

Designer tip: It is no surprise that this interior design choice is so popular on social media. The room reads as adventurous, but the white walls make it livable.

Dual-Toned Neutrals

The strategy that makes any room feel custom: Paint the lower wall a darker greige, warm taupe or cream and transition into a lighter white or cream above a painted chair rail or picture rail. The result is a room that feels grounded, increases the ceiling height and has an architectural quality.

The Best Places to Use It: Traditional or transitional living rooms that have architectural details. This method works with any style of furniture and gives a room a finished look.

Designer Tip Contrast between top and bottom doesn’t need to be dramatic. Even a subtle two-tone shift creates meaningful depth. Consider combining Farrow and Ball’s Elephant’s Breath no.229 in the lower wall, with String No.8 on top.

Azure Tide Ombre

A feature wall worth calling a professional for: An ocean-blue wall that fades from the bottom to a soft blue sky or white near the ceiling is almost like an enormous piece of wall artwork. This requires patience, a good blending method, and, ideally, a professional.

Best Places to use it: In contemporary living rooms, with minimal accessories. The wall becomes the focal point of the room, so everything else needs to be more quiet.

Designer Tip Budget $400-600 for a skilled painter to apply this technique to a 12-foot standard wall. DIY versions rarely produce the seamless gradients that make this look stunning.

 Purplicious

The Joyful Colour for Confident Decorators Purplicious, a medium saturated purple, makes living rooms feel festive. This color is for those who are tired of the safe options and want a room with personality.

Places Where It Works: Areas where the personal expression is more important than resale. Combine it with jewel tones in emerald or ruby green for a maximalist look, or soften the effect with cream and gold.

Rectory Red

The Heritage Red with Centuries Credibility: Rectory Red is distinguished by its deep grayed color, which makes it different from other reds that look like the interior of a chain restaurant. This color is a product of centuries of design history, and that shows.

The best places to use it: Traditional or formal living rooms, especially in older homes with period appropriate architecture. It gives furniture a sense of importance and makes rooms feel important.

Product Highlight: Farrow & Ball’s Rectory No.217, the definitive version of that color. The color is expensive at $115 per liter, but its depth and finish are unmatched.

Waynesboro Taupe

The Thinking person’s neutral: Waynesboro Taupe is a warm, middle-ground color that avoids the flatness and predictability of beige or gray. It has a subtle undertone of green you will only notice when you stop looking. This color enhances everything it is placed next to.

Best Places to Use It: In any living room. This is the closest answer to a universal solution on this list.

Designer tip: Benjamin Moore’s Revere pewter HC-172 occupies similar terrain and remains one of my most successful living room neutrals across a decade’s worth of client projects.

 Lime-Washed

The Technique that Adds Instant History A lime-washed finish creates a layered and weathered look that is not possible to achieve with plain paint. It adds texture and depth that can’t be achieved by painting walls. The color is usually a warm taupe or white, but the texture can make a huge difference in how a space feels.

Best Places to Use It: Mediterranean style, coastal style, farmhouse and organic-modern living rooms. This finish looks great with raw wood, terracotta tiles, ceramics, and natural linen.

Designer tip: Romabio and Pure Original both produce excellent lime washes in the $40-$60 per liter price range by 2025. For the most authentic result, apply with a large brush and overlapping X-strikes.

Moody Plum

Moody Plum is the evening color that changes the energy of a room. It belongs in living rooms with conversations at a lower and more meaningful register. When paired with the correct lighting, this color is rich, deep, and atmospheric.

The best places to use it: Living rooms and spaces that are oriented towards the evening with controlled artificial light. Combine it with velvet upholstery and natural wood, amber and golden lighting to avoid the color reading as cold.

Designer tip: Install dimmers before painting a room with this color depth. Moody Plum looks striking when lit brightly. When lit at 60 percent with warm bulbs, the color looks stunning.

Color (Your Personal Color Statement)

Permission you didn’t know you needed: Often the most powerful design moves are leaning into a saturated, joyous color and trusting in it. It all depends on how you live and your personality.

Best Places to Use It: Creative homes, rental spaces that allow paint, and rooms designed for fun rather than impressing guests.

Designer tip: Use your statement color on all four walls as well as the ceiling to make a big impact. Half-measures in vivid colors look more tentative than deliberate.

Soft White with Natural Undertones

The Quiet Powerhouse Soft warm white with indiscernible undertones like clay or linen makes a remarkable difference to a living space. It doesn’t feel yellowish or sterile. It just feels right. This tone is a great backdrop for any furniture style or season’s decor.

Best Places to Use It: Any living room but particularly those that need to appear larger, brighter, and cohesive without adding color.

Spotlight on Benjamin Moore White Dove OC-17 is one of the best-recommended living room whites. Farrow and Ball’s All White No.2002 has a similar warm tone with its signature chalky depth.