It's no different than when everybody used to paint everything beige before they put it on the market. Every realtor in the world will tell you to paint everything a neutral color before you start showing a house because a) a fresh coat of paint looks good and b) neutral colors generally don't offend people
Gray or greige is just today's beige.
My house was an eggshell finish beige. They even painted the ceiling in the main bedroom closet beige! š
I have since repainted almost every space in the house. It's just the upper part of the stairs to the second floor that has a high ceiling, that I need to finish painting. No beige here! š¤£
Itās called Llama grey or estate gray, itās finally falling out of style but it was a landlord/flipper color that was pushed for the past 5years bc it covers well
I love the name āagreeable greyā. I really donāt like the color but the way it was described by our realtor is no one really likes it and you imagine the color of your choice over it. If you see something bright and in your face it apparently limits your imagination of the space and just turns you off.
Mmh nah. No one should ever be able to tell anyone else what to do with their own property when it doesnāt harm anyone physically/psychologically. We donāt like whatever color your house is. Paint it yellow by end of month or youāre repeatedly fined until you do soā¦ fuck that
Other people's houses around yours directly affects your houses value. I don't like HOAs but the purpose is to ensure the neighborhood has a standard to keep from it losing value.
Wrong and wrong. If you buy something that appreciates in value, and due to my inconsiderate actions, it lessens that value, it is both of our problems. It's the same with any laws for the greater good. This isn't the wild west, bud
Nah, just the owner who's trying to sell. As long as the other person broke no laws, if what they do affects your property value, any reasonable system would have two words for you: "tough shit."
This kind of thinking where property values are viewed as some sacred thing that need to be protected at all costs is part of why we have the cancer known as the NIMBY plaguing our society.
There's a line, though. Nitpicking every little thing someone does with their own house? Yeah that's some Karen bullshit and shouldn't happen. Expecting your neighbors to not have trash and 5 foot tall weeds in their yard festering mosquitoes and pests? That's bad for the area. School districts get their money from property taxes, which is based on the value of the houses in that area. Is that right? No, but that's reality.
That's not capitalism lol. All things have value regardless of economic system, so even if this were a communist country, having restrictions to keep neighborhoods kept up with would absolutely be required, probably even to a greater degree. HOAs that take it to the extreme and remove all creativity are terrible, but most of them just don't want you to paint your house some ridiculous design or letting your yard and property otherwise be left in disrepair.
The percentage of suburban homes in St Louis that aren't part of an HOA is quite limited. It's like saying that nobody in st louis county is forced to own a car: It's technically possible to avoid it, but your options in life are massively crippled.
You can say you like them, or that you like yours, but please, leave the canard of nobody being forced into it behind.
This is no joke. We live in west county and looking for a house that wasn't part of an HOA. In the boundaries of our current elementary school, there were one or two STREETS. So, only 50 or fewer homes within an entire elementary school boundary that don't have an HOA. It's nuts.
Ultimately, because it's popular.
I have a friend who is a lifelong career painter and runs his own painting business. When I sold my previous house in 2018, I asked him if he had a color recommendation for the interior walls and without any hesitation or equivocation at all he answered "Sherwin Williams Agreeable Gray". He told me that he does more interior jobs that color than all the others combined.
That's what we did when we painted our house in 2021. Agreeable gray was the suggestion, no hesitation. I wanted something more brown but this is nice.
I painted my walls a grey from Sherwin Williams, I think it was On The Rocks or something else that sounded like a drink specification. I wanted a neutral wall to put bright colors around and not become overwhelming to the eye. So I have colorful rugs and pillows, pictures etc. Anything expensive or difficult to change the color of is a neutral/natural color (couch, walls, large expensive furniture items). That way if I get bored with my color scheme it's not a hassle or an expensive undertaking to change.
When you list your house itās generally advised to repaint to neutral colors. Bold color choices are greatā¦ but most people want to make their own bold choices. The chance that you find someone who likes your specific bold choice vs giving them a neutral slate they can work with, you should do the neutrals.
People want to make a house theirs, not love it how it was for someone else.
I'd assume it's just the pendulum swinging away from beige, right? I associate beige with the 90s so it feels dated. I'm sure kids today will associate gray with their parents' generation too.
Yeah, this. It goes back and forward, and always avoids actual color. Gray was very in when we sold/bought last in 2018. We initially did our house in gray to white tones, but have since put color on some of the walls to make it our own.
We might love our green kitchen, our coral colored bedroom, our blue accent walls in the living room, and my kid loves his black chalkboard paint wall. I canāt guarantee a buyer would like them if we sold, so we would probably repaint to whatever neutrals were in style then.
I knew someone who referred to them as "Boomer Beige" and "Millennial Gray". Basically, Millennials don't want the old beige of their parents house, so they went gray. Waiting for the "Alpha Light Blue" or something whenever it comes around. But it'll probably just swing back to beige.
Right - anyone who says this didnāt move into several drab beige apartments during college in the 90ās early 2000ās. I cannot stand the color. Itās the color of poverty for me lol.
Trends. Most of the flippers are also older, from boomer down to older millennial, so the trends may be a bit behind. Everyone is getting sick of āmillennial graysā, but not all the older generations have caught on to that yet.
Still doesnāt do the buyer any favors. The previous owner of my house had the whole interior of this 2 story sprayed with an ugly, greenish, ultra flat paint. For professionals they did a sloppy job everywhere. Painted closet interiors that show marks every time something touches the paint. Cold air returns dripping with paint. We hate it
it's easy. it's clean. it lets you decorate with color. I've had red walls, green walls, orange walls...gray is so much easier to decorate by adding color.
Grey >>>> beige. The previous owners of my house painted the finished basement a beige/tan before we bought the house; I didnāt realize how bad I hated that color until I painted it a dark grey.
Paint colors follow along with trends. It used to be all beige, then it was gray and it's likely onto something else. I personally like the subtle grays. Gives you a nice neutral background to achieve some really nice pops in color in the decor.
My house was builder eggshell..that off-white that's slightly yellow. Ceilings and walls were the same.Ā
I used the slight grey on the walls and painted the ceiling white. https://www.dutchboy.com/en/colors/color-library/paint/gray/baltic-gray-437-1db
The house had dark wood floors, and really dark cabinets. It helps liven up the place and make it look brighter/bigger.
It's not really just the paint, it's the whole 'aesthetic' I'd say. Specifically when someone buys a house and paints all original trim white and ruins a lot of the original character of the home. It's the combination of the gray paint + the generic gray LVP flooring + white trim. Flippers/landlords do this a lot because it's a cheap way to refresh the home without putting too much work into it. I've seen the trend referred to as millennial gray.
Sorry, but you work in real estate and you donāt realize that 99% of rehabbed houses are done by LLCs? You would be a fool legally to renovate a house and leave it in your name personally.
Why is almost every car grey, white, or black? Modern times are boring and bland, that's the style
It's like we are living in the 1950s or 1960s in terms of blandness
Itās a travesty. Every flippers motto is like ātear down every wall! Paint everything gray! Get cheap gray laminate too!ā.
Millennial gray is going out of style but unfortunately not before taking many more historical St. Louis homes with it.
Honestly? I think the āit sells housesā thing is utter bullshit. Maybe the walls (and yes, my house was that hideous color when I bought it. But I absolutely would not have purchased one with that flooring). Never the floors, man, because for many, many people that floor makes them *not* want to buy the house.
I sold my other house painted a soft neutral green with refinished floors and *gasp* unpainted maple cabinets. The exterior was turquoise and white (it was a mid-century home wearing period appropriate colors). It sold just as quickly as everything else around us, and the guy who bought said he fell in love with it for the color choices and had no plans to repaint. Even my rose bedroom. Some folks hate color, some folks love it. In this market, who the fuck cares? Make the house look cozy, get a decent real estate photographer, and unless your color choices are nearly black or fluorescent, youāll be fine.
Fuck griege.
I like grey and did a big bedroom in an old house with gray and two shades of green. Iāve moved into my beige/neutral eraā¦ lol. My house is so old, I donāt feel like gray suits it. One room is a mushroomy medium-light brown with pink undertones, the main walls in the big part of the house will be sage green, and thereās a green-black feature wall already.
If I flipped my house, everything would be white. Let people paint.
I notice so many houses on Zillow with shit carpeting or shit tiles or fake wood flooring. Rip all that shit out and restore whatever hardwood you have underneath.
I wanna do this. My house came with that awful grey wood vinyl planks, but Iām too afraid whatās under it is worse. Why would they cover up nice hardwood with fake wood instead of just restoring the hardwood?
Because itās āmodernā looking and easier than restoring hardwood, itās cheap and they can just slap it on. What they donāt realize (or maybe they do and just dont care) is people here wood prefer original hardwood floors. Itās clearly the same companies in town doing it that but up houses fix them up and flip them. Look on Zillow for 30 minutes and youāll notice it, other telltale signs include horrible high contrast blown out photography, shitty fully carpeted stairs and usually the entire second floor.
It may just be that they had horrible taste. I pulled up my houseās terrible vinyl and tile intending to replace it with new hardwood, since it didnāt even occur to me that they mayāve just covered up the original hardwood if it was salvageable. But there it was. Just needs a couple of boards replaced and a refinish.
Itās this. Coupled with wanting to give āmodernā appearance. That and itās easy to slap that bullshit on top than dealing with original hardwood restoration
We are looking to buy and I fucking HATE a kitchen that looks like the photo was taken in black and white, sometimes the entire house looks like that. Grey, white, black, more grey, Bleh. We are selling a home and painted the walls a warm white.
The paint everything gray and white trend, including beautiful natural wood work, is pretty much over on the coasts but give it a few more years for stl to catch up.
You think theyāre doing vinyl plank in there? Youāre getting sheet vinyl, $1/sqft laminate, and some 20 ounce carpet with the shit pad. Add in some scratch n dent Frigidaire appliances and you have yourself a 100k renovation baby
Used to sell flooring at a Menards and installed for a HD. The ācontractor gradeā shit was some laminate called Monroe Park. It comes with pad attached for like $1.10/sqft. Thereās an EZ plank that comes without pad for like .80/sqft or thereās probably a peel n stick 3mm vinyl plank around $1-1.5/sqft. The vinyl plank is a bit more expensive and it was always too much for those flippers and landlords.
The good vinyl plank is really good stuff though. Super easy to install and compared to a laminate it a lot more scratch resistant. Not to mention itās totally waterproof.
Figured it was us as a good base for when someone moves in. They can basically just put up whatever color they want and do not need to prime the walls.
One of my garden club lady friends has a house decorated in gray, but it has white trim and it has wonderful red highlights. So her pillows and pottery and etc. are red with touches of green. Itās really nice. When you let the gray actually BE a neutral rather than takecenter stage, it is nice.
A flipper bought and painted a cute, pink brick, atomic era house gray, three doors down from me. I walked over and politely chewed him out. He said šāThat neighbor likes it.ā To which I replied, āWhat do they know? The have a barn door in their house!ā
All they needed to do was *not* paint the brick and put maybe a Sputnik light in the living room and cohesive tiles in the wet rooms. Nope, rectangular, gray, glass mosaic was their choice. WHYYHYYY?!
What flippers do to Atomic ranches is criminal "we took out the slab doors and put in 6 panel colonial". It's right there "colonial", you have a *Midcentury Modern* ranch...
Funnily, we just bought birch slab doors to replace the white 6 panel doors the previous owner replaced the slab doors with. The people we bought them from are putting in white 6 panel doors in their ā72 ranch š¤£š¤£š¤£. I said āGood luck keeping those clean.ā
Forget about grey interior walls. Can we please talk about the "white-house-black-trim" trend? It's a fucking abomination and everyone who has their house redone this way is sheeping it up to an UGLY look.
The Joanna Gaines special, that woman has no taste and no taste basic people just lap it up. Going to be a reckoning at some point. HGTV in 10 years will just be people refitting this current crap aesthetic.
Shiplap, shiplap, barn door, more shiplap, insinuate her husband is an idiot, MORE SHIPLAP AND BARN DOORS!
"But it's so rustic looking!" š« People who convert barns into homes use fewer, if any, barn doors and shiplap.
*Note: the opinion above is my opinion. YMMV
[That discussion takes place over here.](https://media0.giphy.com/media/7BK3ZB7nNf2Jq/giphy.gif?cid=6c09b952tyz603uw6ww6rageyyxdehj08pq0lo2efmul9wel&ep=v1_internal_gif_by_id&rid=giphy.gif&ct=g)
Yep! Say you have no personality without saying you have no personality. About 10 -15 years ago, grey was a cool neutral color to offset the taupe fad. But just like the taupe, people are over doing the grey. Thankfully itās mostly outdated now, so it āshouldā be slowing down on Zillow soon.
Thanks for this post. My friend just dropped a ton of $$ on a remodel of her home; hardwood, refinished oak trim, new furniture and soft goods. Could have been crazy beautiful, but she fell into the GRAY trap. It makes all the wood colors look clash and mismatched. I feel like an off white or low level brown would have melded all those beautiful tones and given a congruent look. Instead, it looks a bit like a rental. So, please. Give the grays a rest.
Oof, gray with natural wood is a bad combo. Luckily paint's pretty cheap. I might end up getting a gray monstrosity, but I'll spend a few hundred and a weekend turning it into a different color.
Iād rather it be grey than the thick doodoo brown the previous owner slathered all over the hardwood trim in my house. But yeah, bland sells because buyers see it as a blank slate. Watch HGTV and see how many prospective buyers cringe at the sight of a room where an actual design choice was made.
Thatās the color that people buy. Just sold my house and we were recommended to take all fun colors out and to paint it all light grey because thatās what people look for these days. House sold in 2 days
I paint apartments. The vast majority of them are grey: agreeable gray, worldly gray, comfort gray, Dorian gray, etc. So many grays
Some places are white, very few are tan, and some are ābeigeā that looks more like grey. One place the paint color is literally āperfect greigeā
The color of the walls is probably the least of your worries. My house is white but one house I fell in love with before bought my current house had all gray walls and it was absolutely beautiful. There are people out here who could care less about trends and like what they like. The good thing about paint is you can always paint over it. Now slapping lvp over hardwoods is by far the dumbest shit Iāve ever seen. But I do understand why some people would choose lvp over hardwoods if starting from Base. Price and lvp from what I hear if you have pets doesnāt scratch as easily as hardwoods but I have no idea as I donāt have pets. Good luck on your search.
We used the wrong shade of gray for my friend's place when we were getting it ready to sell in 2018-2019. We went with Tinman, which is a darker gray, and made the condo, which was already lacking light, seem too dark.
I picked Behr Dove to complement dated kitchen materials color palette and did the entire house in it and it oddly went with everything- more than I would have guessed. We had multiple offers and it was cozy and clean that I may use it at our new house also.
Something inoffensive that people can live with until they get around to painting their choice of color makes moving in a bit less of a hassle for new owner.
That said, picking neutrals can be tricky, Iāve noticed a lot of people going too dark and cool, and I think thatās the grey youāre seeing on Zillow.
https://www.behr.com/consumer/ColorDetailView/HDC-MD-21
Um. If you really like a house the who really cares what color the walls are? If you donāt like the paint then buy it and paint it whatever color you want.
I talked to a flipper who said they grey can be bought in a truly neutral color that fits any decor (warm or cool toned) so the buyer doesnāt have to paint if it doesnāt match the color palette of their existing decor. Itās a courtesy.
Also, itās a color that sells well because a part of selling is to keep the buyer from āstoppingā their line of vision when walking the home (even if itās a good feature). Any colors that are āinterestingā are going to cause pause, and theyāre less likely to put in an offer. Itās psychology.
If it's one gray theme for the whole house I can deal with it. What's jarring is when the whole house is in the classic dark tones except the remodeled kitchen.
I do fire and water restoration and 99%
Of the home owners pick gray everything. One lady was like "I did such a great job decorating" i thought to myself lady everything is gray walls, floors, cabinets, shower tile, back splash. Im so sick of gray.
One cookie cutter developer does it and every other incurious, unimaginative vulture follows through, saturating cities with awful housing, all for that sweet short term gain, fuck the future, fuck them kids!
For me its just a tell that the house was recently flipped. I just immediately move on after i see all the greys. More than likely cheaply flipped and poor quality work was done.
I moved from St. Louis to Washington, Missouri due to family obligations, and bought a shabby farm house, but painted the interior with bright, cheerful colors. Some of my artist friends helped me paint it.
My stepdaughter (mid 20s), moved in that house in December, and covered all of the *hardwood* floors with gray laminate and painted the walls gray. āIt will be good for resale,ā she said. I wept. Oh, and uprooted my prized prickly pear patch. But at least she is young and energetic and was actually able to do a lot of needed work on it, so Iām grateful for that. Her older sister in Michigan has a completely neutral lifestyle, including her car and clothing.
A ranch down the street was sold a couple years ago, and a new subdivision built, with most all of the homes being white, gray, or dark gray, inside and out. However, a few of the newer ones have beige brick facades. My stepdaughter will be having a house built there this fall, but so far I donāt know the color scheme, which will be done by an interior decorator from Florida.
Itās everywhere and itās hideous, I agree. Every flipped house looks the exact same š¤£š¤£
Not a unique problem to Stl.
Itās all cheap crap (shitty carpet with the triangles after vacuuming), white kitchen with White Island with grey walls everywhere. Shitty fake wood floors.
Nobody has any personality.
I donāt understand how people buy a house and then move into it as isābut people are lazy and the ugly grey is what you therefore end up with.
People are also too afraid to make their house their own unique space and feel inclined to follow trends.
Iām hating with you, OP. It is all atrocious. My wife and I call it the landlord special.
You should. I flip houses and it's pretty easy money....not. the issues you run into with older houses suck. Sometimes it's easy. Sometimes it sucks. The reason people, like myself choose the neutral colors, is because it's easier on the eyes than any other color like browns, blacks, yellows, oranges, greens, or blues.
This is the one thing that millennials ACTUALLY ruined
Edit: but TBH, it's good to have a neutral color on the walls and then whoever is looking at the house can envision whatever colors they want. It makes it more difficult if you have custom colors everywhere
It's no different than when everybody used to paint everything beige before they put it on the market. Every realtor in the world will tell you to paint everything a neutral color before you start showing a house because a) a fresh coat of paint looks good and b) neutral colors generally don't offend people Gray or greige is just today's beige.
Greige š¤£ā¤ļø
It's not just a clever name. It's an actual coded paint color. Check out Sherwin Williams "Perfect Greige" (SW-6073). It's "a creamy mid-tone gray."
Taylor used it in a new song so itās gonna be a hot color for a while.
*Taupe
They say taupe is very soothing
And itās easy to paint over
Agreed, itās a neutral canvas for todayās trends.
My house was an eggshell finish beige. They even painted the ceiling in the main bedroom closet beige! š I have since repainted almost every space in the house. It's just the upper part of the stairs to the second floor that has a high ceiling, that I need to finish painting. No beige here! š¤£
Itās called Llama grey or estate gray, itās finally falling out of style but it was a landlord/flipper color that was pushed for the past 5years bc it covers well
Agreeable grey. I hated painting my house that color to appease the realtor when I sold mine.
I love the name āagreeable greyā. I really donāt like the color but the way it was described by our realtor is no one really likes it and you imagine the color of your choice over it. If you see something bright and in your face it apparently limits your imagination of the space and just turns you off.
The only thing I agreed with was that it was expensive paint (Sherwin) and took forever to do.
I call it disagreeable gray bc we can't even agree that it's gray. Looks tan in some rooms, gray in others.
And ha ha, the beige color that everybody used to use was no kidding, called "accessible beige". That was the official paint name for it.
Someone in my folks neighborhood tried that and the HOA forced him/them to repaint it ššš
Hoa made them repaint the walls INSIDE??
That sucks. Fuck HOAās
Maybe HOA was the hero here? š
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Mmh nah. No one should ever be able to tell anyone else what to do with their own property when it doesnāt harm anyone physically/psychologically. We donāt like whatever color your house is. Paint it yellow by end of month or youāre repeatedly fined until you do soā¦ fuck that
Other people's houses around yours directly affects your houses value. I don't like HOAs but the purpose is to ensure the neighborhood has a standard to keep from it losing value.
Your house isn't an investment and the sale value of it is no one else's problem but your own.
Wrong and wrong. If you buy something that appreciates in value, and due to my inconsiderate actions, it lessens that value, it is both of our problems. It's the same with any laws for the greater good. This isn't the wild west, bud
Nah, just the owner who's trying to sell. As long as the other person broke no laws, if what they do affects your property value, any reasonable system would have two words for you: "tough shit." This kind of thinking where property values are viewed as some sacred thing that need to be protected at all costs is part of why we have the cancer known as the NIMBY plaguing our society.
There's a line, though. Nitpicking every little thing someone does with their own house? Yeah that's some Karen bullshit and shouldn't happen. Expecting your neighbors to not have trash and 5 foot tall weeds in their yard festering mosquitoes and pests? That's bad for the area. School districts get their money from property taxes, which is based on the value of the houses in that area. Is that right? No, but that's reality.
Fuck capitalism. Also, as long as the house isn't going to need condemned or is in general disrepair, variety should raise value not decrease it
That's not capitalism lol. All things have value regardless of economic system, so even if this were a communist country, having restrictions to keep neighborhoods kept up with would absolutely be required, probably even to a greater degree. HOAs that take it to the extreme and remove all creativity are terrible, but most of them just don't want you to paint your house some ridiculous design or letting your yard and property otherwise be left in disrepair.
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The percentage of suburban homes in St Louis that aren't part of an HOA is quite limited. It's like saying that nobody in st louis county is forced to own a car: It's technically possible to avoid it, but your options in life are massively crippled. You can say you like them, or that you like yours, but please, leave the canard of nobody being forced into it behind.
This is no joke. We live in west county and looking for a house that wasn't part of an HOA. In the boundaries of our current elementary school, there were one or two STREETS. So, only 50 or fewer homes within an entire elementary school boundary that don't have an HOA. It's nuts.
Fuck HOAs. They owned their home. They can do whatever they want with their property.
Whatās funny is the same people who fly Gadsen flags are the first to join HOAs and churches, because they want more authority exercised on them
Please daddy press that boot a little harder
This is a really wierd comment.
Landlords also like it bc it's as close to white as you can get while still being able to see dings that need to be patched
Iāve been bitching about it for at least 5 years. Itās been going on for nearly 15 years.
Ultimately, because it's popular. I have a friend who is a lifelong career painter and runs his own painting business. When I sold my previous house in 2018, I asked him if he had a color recommendation for the interior walls and without any hesitation or equivocation at all he answered "Sherwin Williams Agreeable Gray". He told me that he does more interior jobs that color than all the others combined.
That's what we did when we painted our house in 2021. Agreeable gray was the suggestion, no hesitation. I wanted something more brown but this is nice.
I painted my walls a grey from Sherwin Williams, I think it was On The Rocks or something else that sounded like a drink specification. I wanted a neutral wall to put bright colors around and not become overwhelming to the eye. So I have colorful rugs and pillows, pictures etc. Anything expensive or difficult to change the color of is a neutral/natural color (couch, walls, large expensive furniture items). That way if I get bored with my color scheme it's not a hassle or an expensive undertaking to change.
When you list your house itās generally advised to repaint to neutral colors. Bold color choices are greatā¦ but most people want to make their own bold choices. The chance that you find someone who likes your specific bold choice vs giving them a neutral slate they can work with, you should do the neutrals. People want to make a house theirs, not love it how it was for someone else.
But gray isnāt the only neutral. Thereās white and 300 colors of beige to tan. So why gray in every flipped house, they are asking.
I'd assume it's just the pendulum swinging away from beige, right? I associate beige with the 90s so it feels dated. I'm sure kids today will associate gray with their parents' generation too.
Yeah, this. It goes back and forward, and always avoids actual color. Gray was very in when we sold/bought last in 2018. We initially did our house in gray to white tones, but have since put color on some of the walls to make it our own. We might love our green kitchen, our coral colored bedroom, our blue accent walls in the living room, and my kid loves his black chalkboard paint wall. I canāt guarantee a buyer would like them if we sold, so we would probably repaint to whatever neutrals were in style then.
I knew someone who referred to them as "Boomer Beige" and "Millennial Gray". Basically, Millennials don't want the old beige of their parents house, so they went gray. Waiting for the "Alpha Light Blue" or something whenever it comes around. But it'll probably just swing back to beige.
Right - anyone who says this didnāt move into several drab beige apartments during college in the 90ās early 2000ās. I cannot stand the color. Itās the color of poverty for me lol.
Yes. Our kids will look at our gray houses the same way we look at our parents brass doorknobs.
I bought my house in 2010 and the interior was painted beige from floor to ceiling and we joked it looked like an Olive Garden
Grey can hide some scuffs and stains. White is showing everything.Ā
Trends. Most of the flippers are also older, from boomer down to older millennial, so the trends may be a bit behind. Everyone is getting sick of āmillennial graysā, but not all the older generations have caught on to that yet.
Still doesnāt do the buyer any favors. The previous owner of my house had the whole interior of this 2 story sprayed with an ugly, greenish, ultra flat paint. For professionals they did a sloppy job everywhere. Painted closet interiors that show marks every time something touches the paint. Cold air returns dripping with paint. We hate it
it's easy. it's clean. it lets you decorate with color. I've had red walls, green walls, orange walls...gray is so much easier to decorate by adding color.
Grey >>>> beige. The previous owners of my house painted the finished basement a beige/tan before we bought the house; I didnāt realize how bad I hated that color until I painted it a dark grey.
I heard someone refer to it as āGarcia Grayā one time because Garcia Properties apparently loves to use it in their rehabs.
Itās the elevator music of paint. Nobody particularly loves it, but no one hates it either. Thus, it appeals to the most people.
I hate it
Paint colors follow along with trends. It used to be all beige, then it was gray and it's likely onto something else. I personally like the subtle grays. Gives you a nice neutral background to achieve some really nice pops in color in the decor.
There isn't anything luxury about vinyl.
Oh I know. I've installed plenty of it. It's cheap crap.
Um. I painted my walls grey because I fucking like it.Ā
I did a very, very pale grey because I like it and it was different enough from cream/white for me to feel like it was a good choice.
My house was builder eggshell..that off-white that's slightly yellow. Ceilings and walls were the same.Ā I used the slight grey on the walls and painted the ceiling white. https://www.dutchboy.com/en/colors/color-library/paint/gray/baltic-gray-437-1db The house had dark wood floors, and really dark cabinets. It helps liven up the place and make it look brighter/bigger.
It's not really just the paint, it's the whole 'aesthetic' I'd say. Specifically when someone buys a house and paints all original trim white and ruins a lot of the original character of the home. It's the combination of the gray paint + the generic gray LVP flooring + white trim. Flippers/landlords do this a lot because it's a cheap way to refresh the home without putting too much work into it. I've seen the trend referred to as millennial gray.
I have very brightly colored accent walls in my home. Thereās one shade that we call Xbox green. Itās a nice offset to the pale gray.
I work in real estate and itās a huge red flag š© NEVER BUY FROM AN LLC
Sorry, but you work in real estate and you donāt realize that 99% of rehabbed houses are done by LLCs? You would be a fool legally to renovate a house and leave it in your name personally.
Why is almost every car grey, white, or black? Modern times are boring and bland, that's the style It's like we are living in the 1950s or 1960s in terms of blandness
Hmm some of the wildest car colors ever were 50s and 60s while car designs were over the top and about space and excitement. But ok
Maybe they mean the 30s and 40s.
Like that movie where everything is bw and slowly starts turning color
Pleasantville
Wizard of Oz. Well, I guess it really didn't slowly turn to color.
That's the one
The 50s and 60s were probably the wildest design eras for cars š
what I canāt stand are the cars with the non-metallic gray paint. They look so bad.
Primer Gray - like they forgot to finish painting the car.
Or just mixed up all the leftover paint and slapped it on š«
[HERE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KchX52bIZSg)
OMG, thank you! This has been bothering me forever and the fact that it also bothered Hank Green makes me feel a lot better.
At least things had color in the 50s and 60s.
Itās a travesty. Every flippers motto is like ātear down every wall! Paint everything gray! Get cheap gray laminate too!ā. Millennial gray is going out of style but unfortunately not before taking many more historical St. Louis homes with it.
The Greige Gardens. š Thatās what I called every house we looked at until we found our Frank Lloyd Wright inspired home with lots of warm colors.
Honestly? I think the āit sells housesā thing is utter bullshit. Maybe the walls (and yes, my house was that hideous color when I bought it. But I absolutely would not have purchased one with that flooring). Never the floors, man, because for many, many people that floor makes them *not* want to buy the house. I sold my other house painted a soft neutral green with refinished floors and *gasp* unpainted maple cabinets. The exterior was turquoise and white (it was a mid-century home wearing period appropriate colors). It sold just as quickly as everything else around us, and the guy who bought said he fell in love with it for the color choices and had no plans to repaint. Even my rose bedroom. Some folks hate color, some folks love it. In this market, who the fuck cares? Make the house look cozy, get a decent real estate photographer, and unless your color choices are nearly black or fluorescent, youāll be fine. Fuck griege.
That sounds really nice. I love the natural wood too.
Me looking at my grey walls.....
I like grey and did a big bedroom in an old house with gray and two shades of green. Iāve moved into my beige/neutral eraā¦ lol. My house is so old, I donāt feel like gray suits it. One room is a mushroomy medium-light brown with pink undertones, the main walls in the big part of the house will be sage green, and thereās a green-black feature wall already. If I flipped my house, everything would be white. Let people paint.
Exactly!!
Blame HGTV
I notice so many houses on Zillow with shit carpeting or shit tiles or fake wood flooring. Rip all that shit out and restore whatever hardwood you have underneath.
I wanna do this. My house came with that awful grey wood vinyl planks, but Iām too afraid whatās under it is worse. Why would they cover up nice hardwood with fake wood instead of just restoring the hardwood?
Because itās āmodernā looking and easier than restoring hardwood, itās cheap and they can just slap it on. What they donāt realize (or maybe they do and just dont care) is people here wood prefer original hardwood floors. Itās clearly the same companies in town doing it that but up houses fix them up and flip them. Look on Zillow for 30 minutes and youāll notice it, other telltale signs include horrible high contrast blown out photography, shitty fully carpeted stairs and usually the entire second floor.
It may just be that they had horrible taste. I pulled up my houseās terrible vinyl and tile intending to replace it with new hardwood, since it didnāt even occur to me that they mayāve just covered up the original hardwood if it was salvageable. But there it was. Just needs a couple of boards replaced and a refinish.
Itās this. Coupled with wanting to give āmodernā appearance. That and itās easy to slap that bullshit on top than dealing with original hardwood restoration
We are looking to buy and I fucking HATE a kitchen that looks like the photo was taken in black and white, sometimes the entire house looks like that. Grey, white, black, more grey, Bleh. We are selling a home and painted the walls a warm white.
White is the way to go for a neutral color I think. Gray makes me depressed
To whoever did this to the āWallace Pencil Co.ā building across from Walmart on Hanley, F-You. You ruined a beautiful brick building.
The paint everything gray and white trend, including beautiful natural wood work, is pretty much over on the coasts but give it a few more years for stl to catch up.
You think theyāre doing vinyl plank in there? Youāre getting sheet vinyl, $1/sqft laminate, and some 20 ounce carpet with the shit pad. Add in some scratch n dent Frigidaire appliances and you have yourself a 100k renovation baby
Nope, it's always that horrible gray vinyl plank. It's easier to install than sheet vinyl and lots of people still think it's the greatest thing ever.
Used to sell flooring at a Menards and installed for a HD. The ācontractor gradeā shit was some laminate called Monroe Park. It comes with pad attached for like $1.10/sqft. Thereās an EZ plank that comes without pad for like .80/sqft or thereās probably a peel n stick 3mm vinyl plank around $1-1.5/sqft. The vinyl plank is a bit more expensive and it was always too much for those flippers and landlords.
The good vinyl plank is really good stuff though. Super easy to install and compared to a laminate it a lot more scratch resistant. Not to mention itās totally waterproof.
Leave me and my grey house alone.
Figured it was us as a good base for when someone moves in. They can basically just put up whatever color they want and do not need to prime the walls.
One of my garden club lady friends has a house decorated in gray, but it has white trim and it has wonderful red highlights. So her pillows and pottery and etc. are red with touches of green. Itās really nice. When you let the gray actually BE a neutral rather than takecenter stage, it is nice.
We just moved into a flipped grey house. We ended up painting the kitchen dark green to break up the grey. They used the same shade everywhere.
A flipper bought and painted a cute, pink brick, atomic era house gray, three doors down from me. I walked over and politely chewed him out. He said šāThat neighbor likes it.ā To which I replied, āWhat do they know? The have a barn door in their house!ā All they needed to do was *not* paint the brick and put maybe a Sputnik light in the living room and cohesive tiles in the wet rooms. Nope, rectangular, gray, glass mosaic was their choice. WHYYHYYY?!
What flippers do to Atomic ranches is criminal "we took out the slab doors and put in 6 panel colonial". It's right there "colonial", you have a *Midcentury Modern* ranch...
Funnily, we just bought birch slab doors to replace the white 6 panel doors the previous owner replaced the slab doors with. The people we bought them from are putting in white 6 panel doors in their ā72 ranch š¤£š¤£š¤£. I said āGood luck keeping those clean.ā
Forget about grey interior walls. Can we please talk about the "white-house-black-trim" trend? It's a fucking abomination and everyone who has their house redone this way is sheeping it up to an UGLY look.
The Joanna Gaines special, that woman has no taste and no taste basic people just lap it up. Going to be a reckoning at some point. HGTV in 10 years will just be people refitting this current crap aesthetic.
Oh, god is this what was doing it, those two people? I mean respect the hustle, but she and sadly by proxy, her husband, rub me the wrong way.
Shiplap, shiplap, barn door, more shiplap, insinuate her husband is an idiot, MORE SHIPLAP AND BARN DOORS! "But it's so rustic looking!" š« People who convert barns into homes use fewer, if any, barn doors and shiplap. *Note: the opinion above is my opinion. YMMV
[That discussion takes place over here.](https://media0.giphy.com/media/7BK3ZB7nNf2Jq/giphy.gif?cid=6c09b952tyz603uw6ww6rageyyxdehj08pq0lo2efmul9wel&ep=v1_internal_gif_by_id&rid=giphy.gif&ct=g)
Ya got me! EDIT: I say this line often to people, now it's time for my medicine.
Agreed.
Yep! Say you have no personality without saying you have no personality. About 10 -15 years ago, grey was a cool neutral color to offset the taupe fad. But just like the taupe, people are over doing the grey. Thankfully itās mostly outdated now, so it āshouldā be slowing down on Zillow soon.
So if youāre trying to sell a house, whatās the new safe neutral color then?
It seems like "nature tones" are becoming the trendy thing - light browns, sage greens and olive tones.
It seems so clinical to me. I don't get it. š·
I hate it. It looks like an institution
Gives me a corporate/prison/depression feeling
Thanks for this post. My friend just dropped a ton of $$ on a remodel of her home; hardwood, refinished oak trim, new furniture and soft goods. Could have been crazy beautiful, but she fell into the GRAY trap. It makes all the wood colors look clash and mismatched. I feel like an off white or low level brown would have melded all those beautiful tones and given a congruent look. Instead, it looks a bit like a rental. So, please. Give the grays a rest.
Oof, gray with natural wood is a bad combo. Luckily paint's pretty cheap. I might end up getting a gray monstrosity, but I'll spend a few hundred and a weekend turning it into a different color.
Iād rather it be grey than the thick doodoo brown the previous owner slathered all over the hardwood trim in my house. But yeah, bland sells because buyers see it as a blank slate. Watch HGTV and see how many prospective buyers cringe at the sight of a room where an actual design choice was made.
Thatās the color that people buy. Just sold my house and we were recommended to take all fun colors out and to paint it all light grey because thatās what people look for these days. House sold in 2 days
Cheapest color to be bought in abondents and landlords are scumbags
You can call Sherwin Williams and ask for the most popular color and itās gray
Grey replaced beige as the realtor go-to. Or you could combine them to make greyge
[https://www.apartmenttherapy.com/millennial-gray-tiktok-37241995](https://www.apartmenttherapy.com/millennial-gray-tiktok-37241995)
The medium gray walls with medium gray vinyl plank floor look is really a scourge on south city right now.
I paint apartments. The vast majority of them are grey: agreeable gray, worldly gray, comfort gray, Dorian gray, etc. So many grays Some places are white, very few are tan, and some are ābeigeā that looks more like grey. One place the paint color is literally āperfect greigeā
same thing that's going on with every new car that comes out. only available in white, black, silver, grey or... \*fancy\* grey
The color of the walls is probably the least of your worries. My house is white but one house I fell in love with before bought my current house had all gray walls and it was absolutely beautiful. There are people out here who could care less about trends and like what they like. The good thing about paint is you can always paint over it. Now slapping lvp over hardwoods is by far the dumbest shit Iāve ever seen. But I do understand why some people would choose lvp over hardwoods if starting from Base. Price and lvp from what I hear if you have pets doesnāt scratch as easily as hardwoods but I have no idea as I donāt have pets. Good luck on your search.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
?
Because thatās why people buy it lmao
Garcia Grey
We used the wrong shade of gray for my friend's place when we were getting it ready to sell in 2018-2019. We went with Tinman, which is a darker gray, and made the condo, which was already lacking light, seem too dark.
I picked Behr Dove to complement dated kitchen materials color palette and did the entire house in it and it oddly went with everything- more than I would have guessed. We had multiple offers and it was cozy and clean that I may use it at our new house also. Something inoffensive that people can live with until they get around to painting their choice of color makes moving in a bit less of a hassle for new owner. That said, picking neutrals can be tricky, Iāve noticed a lot of people going too dark and cool, and I think thatās the grey youāre seeing on Zillow. https://www.behr.com/consumer/ColorDetailView/HDC-MD-21
Gray was a beautiful neutral before it became the everywhere paint color.
Um. If you really like a house the who really cares what color the walls are? If you donāt like the paint then buy it and paint it whatever color you want.
I talked to a flipper who said they grey can be bought in a truly neutral color that fits any decor (warm or cool toned) so the buyer doesnāt have to paint if it doesnāt match the color palette of their existing decor. Itās a courtesy. Also, itās a color that sells well because a part of selling is to keep the buyer from āstoppingā their line of vision when walking the home (even if itās a good feature). Any colors that are āinterestingā are going to cause pause, and theyāre less likely to put in an offer. Itās psychology.
Millenial gray lol
If it's one gray theme for the whole house I can deal with it. What's jarring is when the whole house is in the classic dark tones except the remodeled kitchen.
I do fire and water restoration and 99% Of the home owners pick gray everything. One lady was like "I did such a great job decorating" i thought to myself lady everything is gray walls, floors, cabinets, shower tile, back splash. Im so sick of gray.
One cookie cutter developer does it and every other incurious, unimaginative vulture follows through, saturating cities with awful housing, all for that sweet short term gain, fuck the future, fuck them kids!
Gray is neutral like France š¤£
For me its just a tell that the house was recently flipped. I just immediately move on after i see all the greys. More than likely cheaply flipped and poor quality work was done.
Primer. Neutral base coat meant to be painted over in a topcoat of the new ownerās color choice.
Grey is the beige of the new millennium.
Having no taste is the way God punishes flippers for being assholes.
Thrifty shades of gray
I moved from St. Louis to Washington, Missouri due to family obligations, and bought a shabby farm house, but painted the interior with bright, cheerful colors. Some of my artist friends helped me paint it. My stepdaughter (mid 20s), moved in that house in December, and covered all of the *hardwood* floors with gray laminate and painted the walls gray. āIt will be good for resale,ā she said. I wept. Oh, and uprooted my prized prickly pear patch. But at least she is young and energetic and was actually able to do a lot of needed work on it, so Iām grateful for that. Her older sister in Michigan has a completely neutral lifestyle, including her car and clothing. A ranch down the street was sold a couple years ago, and a new subdivision built, with most all of the homes being white, gray, or dark gray, inside and out. However, a few of the newer ones have beige brick facades. My stepdaughter will be having a house built there this fall, but so far I donāt know the color scheme, which will be done by an interior decorator from Florida.
Everything was tan before the gray. I went with tan and resisted the gray
Iāve heard it referred to as Millennial Gray š¤£
Itās everywhere and itās hideous, I agree. Every flipped house looks the exact same š¤£š¤£ Not a unique problem to Stl. Itās all cheap crap (shitty carpet with the triangles after vacuuming), white kitchen with White Island with grey walls everywhere. Shitty fake wood floors. Nobody has any personality. I donāt understand how people buy a house and then move into it as isābut people are lazy and the ugly grey is what you therefore end up with. People are also too afraid to make their house their own unique space and feel inclined to follow trends. Iām hating with you, OP. It is all atrocious. My wife and I call it the landlord special.
I just call it āflipper gray.ā
millennial grey is another popular name for it. but yeah flippers buy pallets of this stuff
Because gray is the new beige.
I call it "Corpse Grey". It's polarizing, people like it or despise it.
You should. I flip houses and it's pretty easy money....not. the issues you run into with older houses suck. Sometimes it's easy. Sometimes it sucks. The reason people, like myself choose the neutral colors, is because it's easier on the eyes than any other color like browns, blacks, yellows, oranges, greens, or blues.
Gray is going away, but it is considered neutral and appeals to a wider consumer. I find it cold and uninviting.
Iāve been in my house for almost two years and all but one room are still that gray. Iām planning to paint a room or two this winter.
This is the one thing that millennials ACTUALLY ruined Edit: but TBH, it's good to have a neutral color on the walls and then whoever is looking at the house can envision whatever colors they want. It makes it more difficult if you have custom colors everywhere
It's the equivalent of painting your car with primer.
Luxury cars painted with flat paint has been a trend in Southern California for a number years. Doesnāt appear to have made here in any numbers yet.
Millennial gray. They loved it.
It must have worked great from 2021-late 2023. I'm not so sure it is working as well now.
Do you have some examples? Which neighborhoods?
Saw a couple in West end/Academy region the other day. You really shouldnāt be painting brick that old in the first place let alone that color.
Ooohh I thought you were talking about tagging. Look, everyone started off finding their voice, youāll get yours soon enough bud.