Sherwin Williams Anew Gray is one of my favorite greige paint colors! Come tour our living room for a peek at what Anew Gray looks like in our home and see how it compares to other similar greiges
Soon after buying our home, we painted our living room and dining room the same dark greige color, Sherwin Williams Keystone Gray. While I love this rich greige color in our dining room, it felt too dark for our living room that gets less natural light. So after several years of trying to live with it (and failing…) I decided to repaint with a lighter griege. I narrowed it down to these four final contenders,
and ended up choosing Sherwin Williams Anew Gray. I’ve been super happy with my paint color choice and get lots of questions about it whenever I share pics of our living room so thought I’d share what I love about it and how it compares to other similar greiges. And I’m going to give you a little tour of our living room along the way! (post includes affiliate links; full disclosure statement available {here})
Anew Gray in Our Living Room
I tend to choose greige paint colors over beiges or grays because they’re the perfect Goldilocks colors – the beige tones add some nice warmth while the coolness of the gray tones keep the colors from looking dull and muddy. Anew Gray is a mid-toned greige that has a lot of depth and richness without being overly dark which is exactly what I was looking for when choosing a color for our living room. Here’s a pic of it in our space – it shows really well how Anew Gray can look different depending on the type of light it receives:
Sources: Loveseat & ottoman (custom order from Lee Industries) | Linen swivel chairs | Wood floor lamp | Framed leaf art print | Woven ottoman tray | White vase | Faux eucalyptus | Bone beads | Black & white striped pillows | Round mirror over fireplace | Vases on mantel – no longer available | Faux flowers in mantel vases
If you look closely at the painted areas closest to the floor, you’ll see some purple undertones – that’s because it’s the spot that receives the most light from the window across from the fireplace and it’s cool toned light since it’s a north facing window. Higher up on the wall and around most of the rest of the room it looks like a true greige. You can also see that in more shadowy areas like to the right of my black cabinet, the color looks darker and richer.
Looking at the same space on a different day, you can see that the color on the top of the walls still looks different than at the bottom but the overall color looks less gray because less of that northern natural light was coming into the space this day:
Sources: Fireplace tile | Round mirror over fireplace | Vases on mantel – no longer available | Faux flowers in mantel vases | Decorative snail | White coral (similar) | Wood floor lamp | Framed leaf art print
Other than the purple undertones that you see for a small area of our room with the direct northern exposure light (which will happen with any greige), I see no other obvious undertones with Anew Gray in normal lighting – it’s just a nice not-too-light, not-too-dark warm neutral.
This space has come a long way since we first moved in! Do any of you remember what it looked like way back then?
On the wall across from the fireplace is our window seat which was one of Hope’s favorite places to hang out and have a bird’s eye view of what was going on outside – I sure miss this sweet little face:
(See {this post} for window seat cushion details)
Here’s what that same space looked like on move-in day:
It’s always so fun to take a look back and see how far a space has come – sometimes the changes are so slow and gradual over time that you don’t realize what an impact they’ve made until you go back to the beginning and see where things started!
What Sheen of Anew Gray Paint I Used
I painted Anew Gray in the flat finish of Sherwin Williams’ Duration Home Interior Latex paint. I use flat or matte (close to a flat sheen but more scrubbable) for all of the walls in our home because it hides imperfections in the wall better than higher sheen paints and it’s super easy to touch up. Paint stores often recommend using an eggshell finish for the walls because the higher sheen makes the walls easier to clean fingerprints, dirt, etc. off of. But what I’ve found is that when you scrub something off an eggshell wall, it often removes the sheen from the area you’ve scrubbed, making it obvious that you cleaned that spot. Plus if you want to do a paint touch up years later, the touch ups are more obvious with eggshell than with flat or matte.
The trim in our living room is painted Benjamin Moore Cloud White in satin. There are a lot of different whites that would work for trim with Anew Gray but my personal preference is to use a warm white when you have a warm wall color. Check out my post on white paint colors {here} for more details on other popular warm whites including two other favorites of mine, Benjamin Moore White Dove and Simply White.
Anew Gray vs. Other Similar Greige Paint Colors
If you’re thinking about using Anew Gray in your home, you’re probably debating between it and several other similar greige paints colors so I thought I’d do a comparison between Anew Gray and the six other greige paint colors that people are most often deciding between (according to Google). To show you a true comparison, I bought samples of all six paint colors from Samplize who sells 12″ x 12″ squares of paint finishes with an adhesive backing. Here’s all six of them on our Anew Gray walls:
These are true painted samples (not computer generated colors like color strips you pick up at the paint store) so they give you a really accurate feel for the color without the hassle of getting paint sample cans. You can find the Samplize sample of Anew Gray {here}.
Any time you’re deciding on a paint color, it’s a MUST to test it in your space. It doesn’t matter if you have it in another room of your home where it looks great, if you saw it at your friends house where it looks like the perfect color, or if someone tells you a certain color “always” works. The light that each room receives is unique and it can significantly impact how the paint color looks in that space.
Not only should you try out samples in the room you’re painting but you should move them around the room and look at them at different times of day. The Samplize samples are nice because they stick to the walls for sampling but you can pull them off and restick them in other parts of the room too. So you can try them out on your brightest wall:
and then move them to a dark wall to see how they look in both areas of the room.
One word of warning about the greiges I’m sharing: like Anew Gray, the other grieges in this same hue family have a tendency to show purple undertones in certain light, particularly rooms that get a lot of natural northern light (while in most rooms, especially southern facing, you won’t see any purple undertones). If you’re seeing purple undertones that you don’t like when you sample them on your wall, shift to trying paint colors that have more beige/yellow in them.
Let’s get going with comparing all six of these paint colors to Anew Gray…
Amazing Gray vs. Anew Gray
Sherwin Williams Amazing Gray (SW 7044) is SUPER similar to Anew Gray – it’s pretty hard to tell where one color starts and the other starts in my comparison of the two. They both have an LRV of 47 so are almost the same “lightness” but Amazing Gray has just a few drops more black so is ever so slightly darker. Amazing Gray also has a touch more green than Anew Gray. You can find a Samplize sample of Amazing Gray {here}.
Versatile Gray vs. Anew Gray
Sherwin Williams Versatile Gray (SW 6072) is another color that’s very similar to Anew Gray but just a touch lighter with an LRV of 48. Versatile Gray has a little more red in it than Amazing Gray and Anew Gray. You can get a Samplize sample of Versatile Gray {here}.
Anew Gray vs. Agreeable Gray
Sherwin Williams Agreeable Gray (SW 7029) lies right next to Anew Gray on the color strip. They are very similar tones but Agreeable Gray is quite a bit lighter with an LRV of 60. It’s a great choice if you love the color of Anew Gray but want something a little lighter and brighter. You can get a Samplize sample of Agreeable Gray {here}.
Anew Gray vs. Revere Pewter
Revere Pewter (HC-172) is a Benjamin Moore paint color that’s been one of my go-to greiges for years. A quick little story about it… A while back my sister called me in a panic because her painter had done the first coat of the color she chose for her family room and she hated it. She needed to decide on a new color asap so she could buy the paint and have it ready for the painter the next morning. She lives several states away so I couldn’t see her space in person (which you really need to do for the best color selections) but I recommended Revere Pewter based on what she was looking for and that this color is a close to a “no fail” greige as it gets. She loved it and we both breathed a sigh of relief (because yes, paint choices are serious first world stress 😂). In comparing Revere Pewter to Anew Gray, it’s quite a bit lighter than Anew Gray and has more yellow in it. You can find a Samplize sample of Revere Pewter {here}.
Mega Greige vs. Anew Gray
Sherwin Williams Mega Greige (SW 7031) is actually QUITE different from Anew Gray so I was surprised to find that people often find themselves choosing between these two colors. Mega Greige is the darkest of the colors I’m comparing with an LRV of 37. If actually falls between the color I previously had on our living room walls (Keystone Gray) and Anew Gray on the color strip. Just as I found with Keystone Gray, Mega Greige would be a good choice if you’re looking for a paint color with a deep rich feel but it might feel a little too dark in a room without a lot of natural light. You can find a Samplize sample of Mega Greige {here}.
Repose Gray vs. Anew Gray
Last but not least is Sherwin Williams Repose Gray (SW 7015). It has an LRV of 58 which makes it similar to Revere Pewter in how light it is but it’s a cooler gray (has less warmth in it) than both Revere Pewter and Anew Gray. Repose Gray might look a bit stark in a north facing room but could be a good choice in other spaces if you’re looking for a greige that leans more gray than beige. You can find a Samplize sample of Repose Gray {here}.
Want to see more beautiful greige paint color options? Check out {this post on the 10 best griege paint colors} according to my survey of hundreds of you! And with that I’m off to get a few last things done at our house in NC before heading back to CT one last time to get everything packed up and moved. It’s hard to believe our move date is almost here – I have a lot to share over the next few weeks so stay tuned!