COLOR ILLUSION - How GREY can turn BLUE 

That happened to me when I painted the interior of my home. Tried two different grays, one looked sky blue and the darker looked purple. The problem is that gray isn't really a colour, so what they do is they mix different colours to make it look gray. Different colours can get you to gray, so it is important to know which colours are being used as the base. The only thing that helped with my issue was to pick a gray that had a green undertone instead of blue and voila! In the store the new colour looked green, but once on the walls it was the nicest gray. So, word to the wise, always stick to green undertones and you'll have a perfect gray.

I had that issue with my room. I was pissed looking at a light-light baby blue wall when the paint I bought was grey.

No wonder color selection can make me crazy!

It wold have been cool to see before and after pictures. You said you raised one of the tones, I would have liked to of seen the difference.

Gotta repaint my room now to a different tone grey. I knew I wasn’t tripping. I tried to force it and be like ‘nah maybe you got the wrong grey type’ now I know it wasn’t my fault all along.

Had the same issue with my kitchen. Chose a light gray, but turned out looking light blue. Too lazy to repaint, so I now have a light blue kitchen. 😩

I guess this is why we're all told to buy a sample and paint it (or put on poster boards to be able to move to all rooms) and look at it at different times of the day/night. I've never had it make such a dramatic difference before, but it seems it has to be the perfect mix of pre-existing colors and light in the home already. Thanks for posting!

Thank you, this video absolutely saved my sanity. I painted revere pewter and saw robins egg blue. We have orange red stained concrete floors. I went back to Lowe’s and exchanges remaining paint for 50% darker tint. I now have grey walls! Thank you again for sharing your experience.

Thank you so much for this information. This has an on going right for 3 yrs. All I wanted was a light grey and white house. I've gotten hues of blue,red,yellow,and purple in my Grey. So I finally decided to just paint the house white. Now I know it's my flooring, same orange tint.

I’m here from my blue walls to lol! I learn everything the hard way. 😭

I used behr cathedral gray in upstairs bedroom and bathroom and it looked perfectly gray. used the exact same paint downstairs in a half bathroom vanity and it’s lilac purple. I tried swapping out lightbulbs but it’s still always look purpley I actually carried the vanity door upstairs and up there it look gray. As it turns out it’s just like in your video my downstairs is hardwood floors that orangey brown, but upstairs is beige carpet and lighter color tile. I ended up using rustic taupe from behr, it looks brown in the store but on the cabinet with those hardwood floors it looks the gray we wanted.

Did a driveway in grey. But house had lots of brown around. Driveway ended up light blue. Drove me crazy. But ended up tinting the next job darker just out of fluke and grey came out much better. Glad to see there is somewhat of an explanation for it. I thought I was loosing my mind lol 😂

Running into this issue now. Because of the video presentation and well explanation i had to sub great work. This guy seems like a educated cool guy.

This is why I recommend always getting a sample of the color you want (I work at Lowe's in the paint department) I deal with paint all day lol I had 20 paint samples on my walls because I loved the color but when I put it on my wall it looked horrible.

I'm dealing with the same thing myself. I bought this can at Walmart that look dark gray I went to put it on and it looks blue and does not match my floor. So that's how I ran across your video because I am determined to try to get colors right with the lighting and whatnot. And that little look at the black dot Thing you did. I had to rewind it and look at the color and make sure it didn't trick my mind but you're right. There's a part of me that thinks my paint had a hint of blue in it for it to do this. A lot of things sure do come into play when you're choosing a color.

This is so mind boggling!! Thank you for sharing with us....

Yellow old lights change colors on walls

Dealing with this now. Got a 5 gallon tank of Distant Star paint from Behr Marquee. And after painting in sunny lighting it looks light blue. But at night it's look grey. My floors are light brown. We're changing the flooring to a light grey, so I'm hoping that'll change the illusion.

I bought a grey for 2 bathrooms, laundry room and 2 hallways. 1st attempt wa in a bathroom. It totally looks blue. My floors are grey laminet and my cabinets are black. I can deal with it but dont want any more if it. I painted small areas in each of the other rooms. Some look grey and some look blue. I changed light bulbs. That didnt make much difference. I feel it's from the amount of natural light on every wall. In the future I will always put sample on every wall in the room before committing

I have two experiences with this. Some types of blue WILL look purple when in shadow. I learned that the tones of purple added will shine through in shadow, but in natural light, the blue reflects more blue than what is reflected from the purple tones. Also, the same advice applies to tile. Take your time and get several samples. If you want gray tile, get multiple shades of it. Do your tiling AFTER you paint your walls so that the reflected light and contrasts work together while picking out tile. My tile is dark gray charcoal. It does in fact look "charcoal". My entry way walls are midnight blue (different from the above example, no/much less purple undertone). Now the tile gives off a slight brownish look. Brown is really "very dark orange". It makes sense to see a hue of "very dark orange" in a dark neutral when set next to dar blue. As mentioned in the video, orange and blue are opposites, so the sudden different emerged.

Thanks for nothing waited for your so called knowing all but figured it out my self it was the ceiling was discoloured causing that optical illusion just needed a fresh coat of white white paint on the ceiling and looks great now

Thank you so much for explaining this. My flooring did this to some rooms. Excellent research.

It’s in style. Looking for that color now. 👍.

Well how did you correct it. Bec6im dealing with the same thing

Warm orange tone bulbs don't help grey's either.

The same thing happened to me. I wanted to paint my house, a warm gray color, and when we painted the house, the colour ended up being a blue gray, which it was not the colour I was going for. Looking at this video now, and looking at the flooring and the baseboards, the bannister rails inside the house they are more on an orange tone so I can see why my house looks more blue. I’m thinking about changing the flooring to a dark laminate, not too dark, but a dark brown or a dark gray and see if that brings more of the gray out in the walls also to make it look more warm inside the house because it always looks like it’s cool and I like the warm look

He never really said how he fixed it and how the color looked blue. I actually know exactly what happened. The below paint color is not white, to get the true color of the paint you have to apply a coat of white paint. If you paint over a different color other than white then the results will be always different.

Wow. That was very interesting!

What color flooring would help grey walls look more grey and less blue?

Av just painted my kitchen gray & its blue :-( all I wanted was a gray kitchen now nothing matches :-(

very interesting and well explained, thank you

Omg 😱 so good to know this! Thank you!

Thank you for explaining! I was wondering why my sample gray had a blue undertone!

Same thing happened to me. I have Brazilian cherry floors and the red in the floors make the walls look blue.

You’re really nice! Your client should have tested color samples on the walls. Fixed elements are different in every house. According to online research, lighting is boss!

This is so helpful because my new house has a lot of orange in the floor!

dealing with this in our bedroom now. we painted a couple walls and the funny part is that the other walls are this orange/pink type salmon color. could be like the floor in the house you showed. we're going to paint the whole room, then go a couple shades darker if that doesn't fix it. thank you so much!

Since this theory relies on an optical illusion where your eyes percieve blue instead of gray when gray is against orange at the corner of your vision, this theory could be tested. While standing in this room while looking at the walls, you could block your vision of the orange floors with your hand so you no longer see any orange. The gray should then no longer be influenced by the orange color floors and if your theory is correct, the walls should then appear the correct color gray rather than blue. However, I don't believe this optical illusion is actually the cause of this issue. I have a feeling this issue has more to do with the natural and artificial lighting, but it's not clear from the photos since the lighting in both photos are so different and camera is shooting with different white balances. I would investigate opening or closing windows and trying different light bulb temperatures to see what differences those make.

I have rooms I am painting Granite Grey (Glidden) and the walls look lilac to me. Every now and then I get a hint of grey, but they are lilac. I don't know if the Kilz base 2 made a difference, but I don't like it. Every time I look at it I see a shade of purple. The wood floors were previously painted a dark brown color, no orange. I THINK the bright WHITE lights are pulling out the blue tint. I am going to paint a wall Glidden's Seal Grey and see what it looks like. I want to keep the bright white lights and not go back to the yellow toned lights. I would rather change my paint color choice.

So glad I saw this video I want to change our blue dining room to grey so there is a chance that It might look the same

Sooo how do you actually fix the problem? I have brownish orange floors.

And if it was a North facing home that might have made the blue pop even more. My living and kitchen are painted the same color with same flooring. The problem is that the living room has more northern light which turns it into a purple looking gray. And the kitchen looks even muddy grayish green at times depending on the light of day. Buuut even when the light exposure is the same they still look like they don't match. It still drives me crazy especially since it's open concept and you see both of them next to each other and it clashes. I wish we could repaint it but we put so much work into painting such high ceilings it's not worth it. I'll eventually get used to it.

What color can you bring in to make it look Grey? My sister lives near you andshe sent me this video so that I can ask You!

What color did you use that changed and which color did you settle with?

I learned this by teaching myself pixel art. Also that wood floor is very glossy. Since you darkened the wall more of the floors colors reflected onto the wall end up absorbed by the wall and not reflected back to your eyes.

Was going to pick repose Grey for my house but since we have cherry wood floors thinking that would be a bad idea now. I purchased tons of “grey” colors for my sons room, his floors are a light color no orange tones lots of natural light but all the colors looked light blue. People love “passive” it’s straight blue on any of our walls we tried.

May I ask...what paint color is that on the wall?? I actually like that it kinda turns blue even though it’s gray!!🤩 Oh, and what is it??...eggshell? Satin?? Flat??...

Thank you so much!!!!! I now know how to fix my baby blue bathroom that is really grey!

Thankyou, i learnt alot

How did you fix it so it looked grey?

Yep. We just bought 2- 5 Gallons buckets of "Grey Stone" in an eggshell finish and brand is PPG TIMELESS paint. We intended to do all of our interior walls in Grey with a ultra white trim. However, this is the EXACT problem we are now having...We have gotten 1 wall done so far in our Master Bedroom and it seriously looks a "baby blue" instead of the actual Grey Color it is on the swatch. Now...we're re-considering doing our entire house in this color? Paint is so expensive that I'm literally just sick over what to do...because of course the paint is Non-refundable. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to possibly fix this issue?

I am not sure this is true. I painted my walls first a dark gray that looked like a dark shade of baby blue so then I went and got a light gray that turned light baby blue. I have now changed the floor the window treatments the light bulbs the color of trim and it still looks the same light blue.

I just painted a living room and dining room extract same floor and wall colour. The dinning room looks tan which is what the client chose but the living room looks PINK!!! Can I just have the paint tinted dark? Would I do 20%, 30% darker???

I am searching for a light warm greige or taupe color to repaint my great room. The problem is that my entire house is currently a light cool grey with blue undertones. I'm tired of the blue undertones. So, what undertones in greige will not pronounce the existing blue that will remain in my bedrooms and bathrooms?

...I've had good luck with PPGs "Early Evening"...definitely have to think about the color of nearby reflective surfaces...

thank u for this.. i bought grey color for my room but it turned out to be sky blue when i painted the wall.. it's kinda annoying.. and i don't want to waste the paint so i just move on.. 😩😢

What grey color is that I want it

THIS WAS SOOOOO HELPFUL!!! Subscribing NOW!

Eeek wish we had known this painted two rooms and it’s like a light blue

I've just painted my living room putty Grey and one wall looks Grey on the other wall looks pale blue?

It would be interesting to have the floor with a lot of orange covered with a brown rug that could be easily removed. Voila. Two colors for the price of one (with a quick rug removal).

Yup, this happened to us!

We have a color call sand dollar..we wanted A Grey paint called diver Bullet..after painting 2 coats..it surely looked light blue.would the sand dollar in other words is a light beige ./ Tan color.make that blue color come through?..btw the paint had a primer in it

I bought a light gray paint and after paint was applied to the wall it look light blue. I look at the bucket and it looks gray. What can I do to make it look light gray?

We just got done painting our new house and this is happening to us. Just spent over $5,000 for painting it. Now we don’t know what to do. We did agreeable gray

Ahh! :) Thank you, very interesting and helpful!

Meditative grey looks grey but in our house it’s blue. We have a baby blue house... don’t buy paint online. Get a few samples similar to what you want and tape the samples to the wall and step back you will see it change right in front of your eyes.

I’ve just bought three light grey shades and it looks blue. I’m frustrated

I got a colour and regretted snd wanted 2 shades darker on the colour card but they couldn’t do it. I thought it was a simple drop of colour into the paint bucket but nope, instead all they could do was give me a hint darker of mouse grey rather than the deeper blue hint charcoal grey that was 2 shades down on the same palette card. Confusing since i thought making a colour was like a drop of this and 2 drops of that. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Does the baseboard throughout the house have to be the same color or is it ok to paint small hallway another color like almond milk I’m just tired of the all white? Help

would a yellow undertone gray help??

If different density of difference color could appear same color or lighting could be created illusion

How to fix it please?

What color gray is it ?

Can you just prime the wall white then paint it with the grey? I put a grey over a tan and it came out blue.

What was the paint color used in this video

What paint color did you first use? And then how did you fix it?

Thanks that happen to me twice.

The post is very interesting but I'm stuck at the point where I see what he's saying (that' s 'what so' yet I don't know how to anticipate the implications -- the 'so what." I suppose the solution is to buy a small bottle of the paint and put a dab on to see what color you really come up with or to HIRE A COLOR SPECIALIST.

I used kiltz to cover a green color and when I painted over it the color was different than what it was from the living room. Any thoughts?

Light Reflection Valve LRV FACTOR

I don't think this information is true..I'm having this issue rn..and so far what I've discovered is that it appears blue on walls that are not pure white...and it actually looks grey on walls that are pure white..both surfaces are in the same room...and surrounded by the same cabinets, flooring, and lighting.

Love blue

Doesnt even show us how he corrrected it. Show us the after picture with the new grey you choseee so we can see the difference of how it doesnt look blue anymore. Was that not the point of the video???? To show us how it was correceted??

watching on my phone i was not able to see the color, it still looked grey...

i keep picking a grey that looks blue

Sorry if you’re a color consultant then you should’ve known that the floors would’ve reacted to that color and turned blue. There are greys that can work with that floor. It also depends on the lighting exposure. North facing houses are a struggle to paint gray

these comments have me scared of what color my room is gonna turn out 😩

You know what ? I got painted whole house and its blue :( wait a second i got light grey floor and its still blue.

I'm so pissed right now. I painted this entire house and it looks light blue instead of light gray 😤😤😤😤😤😡😡😤

My interior was supposed to be gray it's blueish gray. Just painted my patio gray it's light blue 😡 im so angry

No it never turned blue the grey bar stayed grey.

👍😉

Me right now😭

I’m so irritated this just happened to me !! Now I have a light blue kitchen 🤣