The Perfect Grey Paint???

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Hi. I am having trouble finding the elusive perfect grey paint.

We have a South-East facing living room. We have tried more than 20 testers (seriously!). When painted on plain printer paper or lining paper, and pinned up to the wall, the samples look great. But when actually painted on the wall, they show as either blue, beige, or lilac undertones.

I want a light pure grey, maybe slightly on the warmer side, but not pinky.

I like the colour of Dulux Polished Pebble in the brochure, but not as much on the wall. We have tried first painted the room Dulux Just Walnut. We really liked it, but we didn't like how it turned lilac when the sun came out. So we painted it the next shade up, Dulux Pebble Shore. However, now the room seems very beigey-brown. And we have silvery grey curtains...

Some of those we have tried:

• Dulux Polished Pebble (have this in our hallway and testeed in our living room, pale grey but often shows blue tones)
• Dulux Goose Down (darker than Polished Pebble, too cold and blue)
• Dulux Chic Shadow (nice but but dark so only for a feature, not a whole room)
• Dulux Just Walnut (really nice warm greyish, but often lilac)
• Dulux Pebble Shore (darker shade than just walnut, greige that is more beige than grey)
• Dulux Egyptian Cotton (too brown)
• Dulux Natural Hessian (too orangey)
• Dulux Nutmeg White (light but definite murky pink tones)
• Dulux Almost Oyster (invisible)
• Dulux Dusted Moss 2 (dark, but good colour match for F&B Cornforth White)
• Farrow & Ball - Cornforth White (surprisingly dark)
• Farrow & Ball - Blackened (pale but strong cold blue undertone)
• Farrow & Ball - Ammonite (blue undertone when on the wall)
• Farrow & Ball Skimming Stone (too beige)
• Farrow & Ball Elephants Breath (too beige)
• Homebase (Grey lace , too blue, similar to F&B Blackened)
• Homebase (Morning Haze, blue, slightly lighter than F&B Blackened)

We want the quality and longevity of colour from a Dulux paint so whatever we decide with either be Dulux or colour matched in Dulux paint.

I guess next to try is Dulux Dusted Moss 3 or 4, and Grey Steele 3

Anyone have other ideas of something we have missed?

Thanks!

This is Dulux grey steel 04.. It is a very pale grey but a true grey... We have it in the kitchen and in the hall, stairs and landing and love it.. It's such a bright colour and makes the spaces very light:)

Have you tried deluxe Warm Pewter?? Don't be put off that it looks darker then some of the others you've mentioned....It's dries lovely & it's actually grey....not blue! We've done our living room in it & it's feels light & bright

The perfect grey is Dulux Timeless Classics in Engraved Locket. We did our entire house in it. We have now extended and need to do some touch ups and have just discovered that the range has been discontinued .

Might have to try some of the above. We are only interested in a flat Matt chalk finish though.

I'm having the same dilemma at the moment. My son has polished pebble in his bedroom and it's definitely very blue toned and cold.
I've seen f&b elephants breath recommended a lot, there's lots of images of it on google, might be worth a look

Another one chiming in with the love for Dulux Engraved Locket. As PP have mentioned it is no longer available ready-mixed as Bruce discontinued the Timeless Classics range you can get it mixed (and for info @sorrel or any others - if you choose the paint mixing ‘flat matt’ finish you will get something very close to the original ready-mixed version).

You could try mixing your own - I did this when I wanted a very light blue-grey. My decorator did the stirring with a paddle attached to a drill, but could easily do it by hand. Just bought a gallon of Dulux white and a litre of the shade I wanted, but which was too dark. Sounds a bit makeshift but apparently it’s quite a common thing to do.

Thanks for the info about getting Engaged Locket mixed on request Buxbaum. We're going to try that later this month as pretty much each room needs redoing or touching up and the colour we chose as an alternative is much too blue!

You're welcome, sorrel, and well done for deciphering my message despite the best efforts of autocorrect. Obviously for 'Bruce' read 'Dulux' - a totally logical substitution...

Our decorator centre will mix a tester for you so you can check the match before spending loads on new paint.

We have Crown Period Sunday School in our living room and I absolutely love it. It changes throughout the day but I'd always warm and has no blue undertones. It's really lightened the room

We used grey steel 04 ...it just looks just like white 🤨

Little Greene French Grey here too - perfect shade.

OP- we tried most of those you listed for our hallway and kitchen and had the same problems as you. In the end we started looking at Dulux heritage colours and found they were perfect. Used ash white in the hallway which is an ever so slightly beige grey and Indian white in the kitchen which is pale but shows up as a true grey....no hint of blue at all. They have some other greys too .....

Laura Ashley have a couple of greys in just now - Steel and Pale Steel. Don't know what the quality is like as we have only just done small test patches too.

Reinvigorating this thread, any other suggestions other than the above, for a pale grey for a hall stairs and landing that gets very little light ? We have Egyptian cotton in most rooms but fancy something grey but v light , paintwork will be white and ceilings

I have a dark hall stairs and landing and have used this
https://www.crownpaints.co.uk/products/standard-emulsion/matt/cloud-burst/145
Would have uploaded a photo but have used my daily quota!