How to style a very grey house

[Greygreyhouse]

I have bought a Mediterranean property which is a new build circa 2014 and unfortunately it is of the era where everything is grey. I would have genuinely preferred the dark wood and yellow-y tiles which is common for older properties in the area.

If it was solely a kitchen or grey plush carpets, I could work with it. But there are so many different tones and they are everywhere.

I have:

• a two tone grey wood kitchen with chrome handles and a grey worktop
• fitted wardrobes in pale grey wood in the bedrooms
• a grey tiled floor throughout, again two tone patterns
• brilliant white walls
• chrome hardware throughout

It feels so cold. The property’s interior was a big compromise but can’t afford/don’t want the hassle of doing the work right. It will be perfect when I put my stamp on it.

I prefer beige as a neutral and like vibrant, sunny, holiday colours as accents (blood orange, teal, yellow) but I feel like the two tone grey throughout is fighting against it. I don’t really know how I can add warmth.

yellow and grey are usually put together, but it just feels very cheap here. I think it’s because everything is tiled and smooth, with no texture.

Is my only way of making this work leaning into greige and monochrome? Does anyone have any suggestions?

I‘m going to replace all chrome fittings with black to modernise it a bit..

Bump

Can you post some pictures so we have more of an idea of what you are dealing with? I’m thinking black handles won’t really help tbh.

I don’t want to because was once a prolific air BnB business (lots of images all over the web). I have been on this site for yonks and always wary about posting more identifying info than needed.

Black minimalist handles will help compared to the flashy chrome. Just thinking about colour schemes really and ideas for adding texture and warmth to such a cold place.

just imagine a series of very boxy rooms with grey tiles (light and dark in an geometric pattern, grey woodwork and a light grey and dark kitchen)

thank you for your response

Usually natural items and texture help.

ikea do large hessian type rugs which might work to break up the floor in some places.
Large pots with indoors tall plants.

natural woods in furniture

warm tan brown leather, cream/ natural throws with browns or warm oranges

Would adding blues along with lots of wood and naturals tones help?

I'd paint the kitchen cupboards and maybe replace the worktop.

You could also paint the wardrobes.
I'd change the handles to a warmer metal.
Then add lots of colour.

I could probably put up with the floor as I think it wouldn't matter as much when you sort the walls and cupboards.

I bloody hate a whole house of grey. Why on earth did so many go with it.

Get the kitchen cabinets resprayed - very cost effective and the finish is great. New worktops alone wouldn’t be too much. Lots of rugs.

Thanks. I was thinking lots of wicker and other basket material.

i like the idea of a tan sofa.

I will look into the respraying. I know it’s popular in the uk but I don’t know about here

I need so many rugs. Such a cold floor.

i sound like a right moaner but I wanted this village so badly and properties NEVER come up and it’s hard to self build so I had to move

Lovely ideas, thank you

You can paint kitchen doors yourself as long as you prep properly and use good paint
same goes for wardrobe,
plaster pink on a wall or two lots of white and wicker , sisal rugs ,plants etc will change it
easy and cheap

I agree that plants and baskets will add life. Warmth and texture. But I would also look at brighter cool colours as grey is cool toned - green, blue, pink. Not garish versions but ones with strong pigments- the grey will complement them I think and become a neutral. Colours like F&B Cooks room blue, rangwali or verdigris green from the natural history museum collection. I like grey as a complementary neutral to deeper and brighter shades

We had this too, though not in a mediterrean climate sadly, just UK which is too grey for me without adding the indoor decor to the grimness. Your cheapest fixes:
-- repaint the walls a warmer colour. There is a reason Magnolia is such a cliche: it's a soft but warm shade. Offwhites in warm tones are your friend. Repaint or respray cupboard doors either to match warmer wall colours or even go warmer still with some red tones. If truly desperate, paint one small wall in a warmer paint shade.
-- try to make your textiles and textured items (tea towels, throw rugs, cushions, curtains, bathroom towels) as well as any other small kitchenwares (mugs, oven mitts, matts and trivets) be in warm bright colours like red and terracotta too. Especially effective if you keep them all in the same colour so there's a line of that one shade running throughout the house. A surprisingly small amount of a warm shade will have a surprisingly big impact against grey.
-- consider whether some of the light bulbs should be replaced with warm bulbs instead of cool; also, it's not usually too expensive to swap in dimmer switches to create mood lighting. Some of that can be longer-term; meanwhile scatter lamps and candles do a lot of good. And if you have standing lamps or desk lamps with shades, a warm yellow or red or pink shade is very, very effective.
-- it's not necessary to replace the kitchen counter and floor tiles which would be more expensive; we couldn't afford to, but it turns out that grey plays quite well with beige, yellow, and all reds. (TBH I too dislike grey but I do think your tiled floor will be okay: though it includes grey, the pattern's curves and repeats add a different kind of warmth or should I say Mediterranean feel?) You could try to see if you can find things that repeat that pattern but in warmer colours.
--In fact, we've found it especially useful to seek out textiles and throw rugs that combine the greys we wanted to de-emphasise with the warmer reds or yellows we want people to notice. A certain consistency overall really seems to help: don't focus on painting every room a different warm colour, IYSWIM?

Just saw the two posts before mine, from MrsGreen and PlainJane and do want to point out that my main difference from them remains my main point. No, since what you (and I) dislike about grey is its cool tendencies, do not try to play it with further cool tones. Grey really does work very well with warm tones.
Actually our main bathroom when we bought our little house was all greys. A merciful plumbing disaster forced us to retile part of the room but we couldn't afford to replace everything. And, though I was sure it couldn't work, it turned out that grey tiles on the floor and counter works extremely well with rich cream/beige tiles on the shower and a sand-coloured wall paint. The very subtlety of this combination adds immense richness. Especially with, ok, red bath mats and towels! Not pink. Pink and grey comes across as very harsh in my view.
Remember, you're not dressing yourself by colour season: you don't have to put all "cool spring colours" together in a room the way you might on your body.

I agree with natural wood, baskets and plants, I’d look at an earthy terracotta to warm the interior up. Depends on the shade of grey - is it pale or battleship?

Like this

Can you add stencils to the grey tiles? I've seen lots of pins about this, but it's been done to outside grey slate tiles, they're usually done in a white paint on a Moroccan stencil or a leaf pattern. No idea if your tiles would take floor paint, but it would really break up the grey.

https://www.cuttingedgestencils.com/blog/jazz-up-an-old-kitchen-floor-with-a-tile-stencil.html

https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/465809856/alhambra-tile-stencil-large-tile-stencil

I think that really changing the floors will help a lot. Something textured and more in keeping with the area style wise.

I have a lot of grey as I find it calming but I also have - beige, teal, dark blue
So it's not cold. Loads of texture too and I just added a green and cream rug

Hire a painter?

Eek that sounds a lot like my house! I’m much more drawn to cool toned colours and I was so sick of brown carpets and magnolia walls after years of renting. We have white walls and grey carpet and hard flooring but white kitchen units and wood furniture.

I’ve picked colours for each room (for things like curtains/soft furnishings) that I think go well. An aubergine purple for the front room, the kitchen has red accessories with curtains with a large poppy print, a duck egg blue for our bedroom, rose pink for our youngest and a lavender for my eldests room. I also think a primrose yellow looks lovely with grey.

If I had no money to paint all of the walls, I'd paint some of them at least, in light blues, and heavy on cream , and decorate heavily with the cream blues and lavender shades.
I'd try and do it like the beach house on Grace and Frankie. I love beachy themes.

We have a similar beautiful but 50-shades-of-grey walls property!
We had a lot of oak furniture which seems to add a lot of warmth and texture and I've bought vibrant and warm curtains which add colour and can be changed.blue, green and yellow set of very nicely on grey so add those splashes in..