Fast — what color are the walls?

If you answered with a single word — say, “blue” or “yellow” — maybe your walls can use a small chromatic intervention.

I’ve always been a lover of in-between colours — these indescribable shades that fall somewhere between a single colour and another on the color wheel. These colours rarely look exactly the same from 1 time of day into another. (Much of this is a result of the amount of pigments used. The pigments that go in the paint, the more mutable the color.) And since these sunglasses are harder to pin down, you are not as inclined to grow tired of these.

Scared of color? Or uncertain whether to go crazy or mild? These in-between shades can be a great compromise, offering a tease of colour. And they are much more intriguing than ho-hum neutrals like cream or beige.

Try one of those piquant pigments on your own walls. Then, when somebody asks you what the color is, you can inform them “Well, it’s kind of an indescribable mix of …”

Olson & Jones

Can this color golden? Or green? It probably depends upon the time of day and the weather. Think of it as getting several colours for the cost of one.

Kate Jackson Design

This whisper-soft colour (C2’s Vex) is about as un-green since you can get and still be green. And who’d have thought of combining green and orange? But here it functions.

Leslie Goodwin Photography

Gray for a dining room? Ordinarily, the shade is too chilly. But not here, where it’s tempered with enough brown to bring some warmth into the table.

Nora Schneider Interior Design

This color (Benjamin Moore’s Bennington Gray) tiptoes online between gray and beige, offering the feeling of a color when staying firmly in the neutral camp.

Ann Lowengart Interiors

There is enough shameful in this brown (Benjamin Moore’s Silhouette) to allow it to feel completely refreshing. And what a fantastic background for the chartreuse accents!

Kasey Buick

I’m not a massive fan of blue, but I find that this shade (Ralph Lauren’s Faded Silk) irresistible. There is enough green and gray inside to make it intriguing, and as soothing as a bed of clouds.

CWB Architects

You will find a warmth and softness to this gray (Benjamin Moore’s Coventry Gray) that belie any institutions we might have with that color.

Rachel Oliver Design

Is it gray? Is it? This shade (Behr’s Stepping Stones) is hard to pin down, and as a result of that, it grabs your attention without drawing too much attention to itself.

Mackle Construction

Boasting just a whisper of blue, this wall shade (Benjamin Moore’s Glass Slipper) feels like the ideal match with this coastal home — but avoids the white and blue shore cliché.

Michael Abrams Limited

With vaulted ceilings, a stone flooring and a spacious floor plan, this area could easily have appeared chilly. But the color (Benjamin Moore’s Grant Beige) warms and domesticates the volume and helps anchor the seating places.

Can you have a favorite in-between color? Please share it with us in the Comments!

More: Moving Greige — Tips for Choosing This All-Around Neutral

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