Ideas & Inspiration
The living room is designed for friends and family to gather and spend time. For this public space, the best paint color is one that fits the mood or atmosphere you want to create.
The main living area of your house is where you establish your signature style. Relaxed and casual? Modern and polished? Steeped in comforting tradition? No matter what your look, the perfect paint color will underscore it. Pick from our extensive palette of user-friendly Aura® paints. For help in choosing the best colors for your living room, check out designer-selected color combinations for one that fits your decorating personality.
Transform Your Space
As its name suggests, we live in our living rooms. In this video, you’ll see how six popular living room colors dramatically impact the same space, resulting in a range of diverse design styles.
Favorite Benjamin Moore neutral paint colors include classic White Dove OC-17 and Stardust 2108-40. Another essential neutral that blends gray and beige, Wish AF-680, is from our Affinity Color Collection. More vivid paint colors in this cinematic living room include elegant Black Raspberry 2072-20, cheerful Hibiscus 2027-50, and the always-airy Gossamer Blue 2123-40, all of which create a distinct mood in the space.
Shifting into Neutral
Neutral colors are natural color choices for a living area.
Often living rooms and family rooms are open to other areas of the house so a great neutral can enable the use of color in adjoining spaces.
Picking the best neutral paint color is a matter of style: warm shades tend to be inviting and cozy while hues with cool undertones have a chic, modern vibe.
And don’t consider white a color cop-out—selecting from the vast variety of white hues creates a blank canvas for favorite art and furnishings.
A Case for Color
If most of the big-ticket elements in your living area are neutral—carpet, flooring and fabrics—the right paint color can add dimension and interest.
Deciding on the best color for your home? Visit an independent Benjamin Moore retailer for a pint sample to see how the color looks throughout the day.
Beyond the Pale
When you want to add design drama with bold color but don’t want the hue to overpower your space, paint an accent wall.
Choose a wall in the room that makes sense as a focal point, such a fireplace wall. Select a color that can be tied to the overall space with fabrics, area rugs, and accessories.
The remaining walls can be painted in a lighter version of the accent color, or select a neutral with an undertone that complements the accent wall.
See the Light
The amount of light your living room gets impacts color. A room flooded with sunlight can handle more saturated color, but pale shades tend to get washed out. For help in picking the most comfortable color, take your room’s temperature.
Cool color counters strong sunlight, but north-facing rooms get cozier wrapped in a warm color. Choose Benjamin Moore Aura® paint in a matte finish to ease the reflections in a room with strong natural light, or for a soft effect in rooms where natural light is minimal.