Living Room Paint Colours
A living room colour needs to feel right in daylight and under the lamps you switch on each evening. Start with the way your windows face, then choose between easy neutrals, garden greens and deeper shades that make the room feel enclosed. Every shade is available as a 60ml sample.
The best living room colour is one that suits the direction your room faces and the time of day you actually use it. Most of us live in our living rooms after dark, under lamps, so a colour has to look right in grey morning light and warm evening light. Below are the shades we'd shortlist, grouped by the job they do. Every one is hand-made on demand in our scrubbable Wall & Ceiling Paint and in every other specialist paint type, so walls, woodwork and radiators can match exactly.
At a glance
- Start here
- Choose for your evenings. Think about when you use the living room most. A colour needs to suit your daylight and your lamps.
- North light
- Warm stones or earthy depth. Cool, steady north light suits warm neutrals and deep earthy colours. Avoid choosing a cool grey just because it looks safe on the chart.
- South light
- Greens and cooler stones. Warm, bright daylight keeps greens and green-based stones fresh. Try deeper cool colours if pale shades look washed out.
- East light
- Keep warmth for later. Morning sun is warm, but afternoon light becomes cooler and bluer. Warm stones help a living room stay welcoming later in the day.
- West light
- Greens for the evening glow. Mornings are cool and flat before warm golden evening light arrives. Greens and deeper cool shades suit a living room used towards evening.
- Woodwork
- Let the edges blend. Matching the skirting and doors to the walls makes the scheme feel calmer. Use the paint intended for each surface.
- After dark
- Your bulbs decide the mood. Judge deeper colours under the lamps you actually use. Check the corners as well as the wall beside a lamp.
- Sample tip
- Check every change of light. Move your sample between walls. Check it in morning and afternoon daylight, then under the lights you use at night.
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Easy-going neutrals for almost any living room
Warm and fresh neutrals for different daylight.
Best in north-, south-, east- and west-facing rooms
Not every living room needs a statement. A good neutral has to sit happily with oak floors, a grey sofa and whatever art you hang next year. The problem with so many 'safe' neutrals is that they're bland greys that turn dingy the moment the sun goes in. Ours are built on clear undertones, so they read warm or fresh on purpose, not by accident of the weather.
Not sure which way to lean? Let the window decide. Every stone here suits east- and west-facing rooms. The warm-undertone stones also suit north-facing rooms, the green-undertone stones also suit south-facing rooms, and Generale™, Cameron Stone™ and Parchment™ suit any direction.
Best in north-facing rooms with warm stones such as Caunton Cream™ or Tatters™, south-facing rooms with cooler stones such as Ancaster Stone™ or Millstone™, and east- or west-facing rooms with any of them. Generale™, Cameron Stone™ and Parchment™ suit every direction.
Greens that bring the garden indoors
Garden greens that settle into warm daylight.
Best in south-, east- and west-facing rooms
Green earns its popularity. It's restful in daylight, rich in lamplight and it gets on with wood, linen, leather and plants. Softer, slightly greyed mid greens are the easiest place to start. The deepest greens turn a living room into something closer to a library, in the best possible way.
Greens are at their best in south-, east- and west-facing light. In a north-facing room, choose Cameron Green™, Pippin™, Loxley™ or Erewash™, and sample them right next to a warm neutral before you decide.
Best in south-, east- and west-facing living rooms, where warm daylight balances these greens. Theatre Green™ is best kept to east- and west-facing rooms.
Deep colours for living rooms you use after dark
Rich evening colour with daylight choices built in.
Best in north-, south-, east- and west-facing rooms
If most of your living room time is after work, design for the evening. Deep colours soak up lamplight and make a room feel wrapped around you: the corners blur, the walls step back and the furniture glows.
Don't rule them out because the room is small. Dark walls hide where one wall ends and the next begins, which makes a compact living room feel deliberate rather than cramped. Carry the colour onto the skirting, architraves and even the ceiling for the full effect.
Best in north-facing rooms with earthy depths such as Standard Hill™ or Navigation™, south-facing rooms with Turney™ or Bobber™, or east- and west-facing rooms with Bobber™ or Ashfield™. Choose the shade for your daylight, then check it under your evening lamps.
Colour drenching a living room
One colour connects walls, ceiling and woodwork.
Colour drenching means painting the walls, ceiling, skirting, doors and radiators in one colour, or in one colour at two depths. It is the quickest way to make a room feel finished and considered.
It only works if every surface can be painted in exactly the same colour, in a paint that's actually right for that surface. That's exactly why we make every Cameron Colours shade in every specialist paint type: scrubbable walls, hard-wearing woodwork and heat-resistant radiators, all in one perfectly matched colour.
Sample it the way we would
Step 1
Paint your peel-and-sticks
Each £5.99 sample comes with three paintable peel-and-sticks. Give them two coats and let them dry fully.
Step 2
Stick them around the room
Put them on two or three walls, including the wall opposite the window, at eye level and lower down.
Step 3
Live with them for a day or two
Look in the morning, the afternoon and under your evening lamps. Move them around until you are sure.
Your questions, answered
What colour should I paint my living room?
Start with the light, not the colour chart. Check which way the main window faces: north-facing rooms suit warm undertones, south-facing rooms can take cooler colours, and east- and west-facing rooms change through the day. Then decide on the mood, light and airy or cosy and enclosed, and shortlist two or three colours to sample.
What colour suits a north-facing living room?
Colours with warm red, yellow or brown undertones. North light is cool and even, so cool greys and blue-based whites can look flat and chilly. Warm stones, plaster pinks and deep earthy colours all hold up well.
Colours for north-facing roomsShould the woodwork match the living room walls?
It doesn't have to, but painting the woodwork in the wall colour, or a shade deeper, makes a room feel bigger and calmer because your eye doesn't stop at every skirting board. Brilliant white woodwork can look stark against a warm wall colour.
Which finish is best for living room walls?
Our Wall & Ceiling Paint comes in Dead Matt and Matt, and both are scrubbable. Dead Matt is the flattest, lowest-reflection look, with a soft, chalky appearance on a durable film, and draws the least attention to uneven walls; Matt reflects a little more light.
Finishes explained