Move over beige — there’s a new neutral in town

Friday, May 3, 2013

Gray is the new darling of designers, the National Kitchen & Bath Association reports. The color has recently been used in 55 percent of the kitchens and 56 percent of the bathrooms decorated by the designers who make up the group’s membership.

Gray is more than just a mixture of black and white, said Sonu Mathew, an interior designer who works on the color team that curates the palette for paint maker Benjamin Moore & Co. Gray can have undertones of red, blue, green or purple, which she said makes it “very complex,” even mysterious.

That characteristic makes gray work well with many colors, Mathew said. Gray gives the eye a chance to rest, she explained, so we can appreciate the other colors in the room more.

See Saturday’s Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for more about the “wonderful new neutral” that is being called “mysterious” and “the new beige.”

That’s a compliment. We think.