How To Choose The Right Grey Carpet

Good Morning and welcome to the last of my collaborations with Brintons Carpets. I have already written a detailed guide on buying the right sort of carpet for the right room and now we are going to focus a little on the colour.

Specifically the right shade of grey. As many of you will know, it was my guide to choosing the right shade of grey paint that led to my first book and the advice in that post is still useful if you don’t have the book, but getting the right grey underfoot can be just as problematic so I thought I would help out with this post.

In fact, it was with this in mind that Brintons first approached me to work together. They were just about to launch a new collection of grey carpets following a significant increase in customer inquiries for this colour and who better to help with that than the author of a book about grey? The new collection has 14 different shades including mineral  space, polished silver and steel. Some are patterned and some are plain. Some are purple-toned – Dark Dove, Pewter Frosted Diamond, some are are dark like Smoke and Flint and some are pale such as Moonstone and Pumice. Yes there’s a lot of choice.

Now you will remember from that first post that grey changes enormously according to the light – golden for south and west and blue for north and east – so that is the first thing to consider when picking your grey carpet samples. Now obviously if you have grey walls you will need to co-ordinate the two very carefully but I would imagine that many of you will have walls of a different colour and will be looking for the perfect neutral carpet.

Ten years ago, perhaps even five, this would have been a nice neutral oatmeal that when with the white walls and didn’t cause any upset – although I’m guessing it showed the mud more than you bargained for originally. Brintons say that shades of grey are now as popular as shades of beige and my guess is that the former may well overtake in a couple of years.

Fast forward a few years and that oatmeal looks a bit old fashioned. A bit 1990s and a bit… well… beige and boring. So you have decided that a sharp grey will look more contemporary and more striking. And you strolled off to the carpet shop and asked for a couple of samples and emerged blinking into the light an hour later wishing you had never started the whole sorry business of redecorating.

Right, take a deep breath and listen up. First of all you need to get as many samples as you can. If you are going to a real live shop then do take in the paint – perhaps on a piece of card like a swatch, and a cushion so you can see how the colours all work together.

If you are looking online then remember that computers all callibrate colours differently so use the computer to narrow down your choices before ordering the samples. You will need to see them in real life and in your own home. Brintons has a room visualiser feature which will help give you an idea of scale and colour over a large area.

Natalie Littlehales, consumer marketing manager of Brintons says: “You need to live with the samples for a few days to see them in both natural and electric light as they will look different. That should help you narrow down a clear favourite.”

If the carpets are in stock then don’t be afraid of asking the salesperson to roll it out you can see it as large as possible before committing. Then remember which way your room faces and the likely tint of the light that will be coming into it.

Now if you have got it wrong and remember the longer you live with the sample and view it against your furniture and walls etc the less likely that will be, don’t panic. Grey is a forgiving colour and while it might take ages to find the right one you can rectify some mistakes. If it has come out cold and blue then bringing in some natural wood in the form of a coffee or bedside table will help to warm it up. In a bedroom you can change the bedding – perhaps a soft pink linen or sage green will work. If it looks too beige then go the other way with some black or cool blue to taken down the yellow tones.

I hope that has helped you with decisions. As I said if you read the previous post (linked at the top) that should help you work out what sort of carpet you need and this should narrow down the choice of greys. Pale grey will always look luxurious, dark probably isn’t as practical as you might think as it will show the dust so if in doubt aim for a a mid-tone.