It has always been believed that gray floors and gray walls in the interior evoke melancholy and monotony, however, the work of modern designers and technologists has turned this idea around. Today the market offers a huge variety of artificial surfaces with almost unlimited color options, so interior designers have the opportunity to expand their palette.
Gray laminate and gray floor tiles quickly became popular and it turns out that they can fit perfectly into any design project.
Possibilities and features of gray floor
- A dark gray floor in the interior can visually reduce the space of the room or make it narrower, while a light gray floor can cause the opposite effect.
- Not too dark shades of gray do a good job of uncluttering an interior cluttered with furniture, bringing a little freshness and lightness into it.
- A room with a gray floor creates a calm and cozy atmosphere, conducive to proper rest and recuperation.
- If you can find a laminate on sale that has an unusual color (a mixture of gray with beige or brown), then using such material you can create such an unusual gray floor in the interior that its appearance will change your entire understanding of the interior decor.
But the feeling of relaxation and harmony of space that people experience when they spend a long time in such interiors often prevents them from concentrating, their performance decreases and it becomes difficult to do any painstaking work. It is for this reason that the same designers do not recommend laying gray parquet or laminate flooring in study corners and work rooms.
But rooms in gray tones allow you to harmoniously collect your thoughts and tune in to a philosophical mood.
A gray floor color will look great in the interior of a bedroom or living room. Gray may seem no less attractive in the kitchen or dining area, provided that the owners are not afraid of the certain coldness of the atmosphere it creates. However, the last drawback can be easily corrected by adding bright colors or beige shades to the interior palette.
Floor color in a room with gray walls - practical interior solutions
Let’s identify the advantages and note the nuances of gray in the room:
a dark gray floor in the interior usually visually reduces the area of the room, making it narrower, while a light gray floor, on the contrary, can increase it; calm shades of gray dilute the interior, loaded with furniture, with their lightness and laconicism; such a floor promotes a surge of strength, calmness, and immerses you in a cozy atmosphere; rather unusual color of the floor covering – gray or ash laminate. This material will allow you to find an interesting interior solution and change the perception of the situation in the room. Also suitable for the ultra-fashionable design of a modern apartment; Gray finish is ideal for a living room or bedroom. In the kitchen, this color creates a cold atmosphere, although this can be corrected with bright colors or warm shades in the details of the room.
What interior styles does gray flooring suit?
When designing an interior, you should consider what wall color suits the gray floor and that it is not equally suitable for all styles.
It is best to fit a gray floor into the following interior styles:
- strict classic;
- high tech;
- modern
In addition, gray laminate will look good in some ethnic styles, for example, Scandinavian.
Photo of a gray floor in different interior styles (high-tech, modern, Scandinavian):
In order not to get a too cold, deathly gray interior, it is better to dilute it by experimenting with a warm palette of wall coverings, or add furniture from correctly selected types of wood. The color scheme of furniture can be quite rich; a light gray floor in the interior looks great with furniture of the following colors:
- vanilla;
- zebrano;
- wenge.
If the owner seems that the room lacks special softness and comfort, then this impression can be softened with the help of objects painted in warm colors, with a texture close to wood.
Gray floor and its properties: useful to know
Gray color has a huge number of shades. It can be light, dark, with highlights, matte, interspersed with contrasting colors and even with ornaments. Taking all this into account, it is worth choosing a material option that will not “steal” the space, but will give the room a new life, drawing you into a world of peace and comfort.
So, dark gray laminate. This option should be chosen for spacious rooms in order to make them more comfortable due to visual narrowing. At the same time, light parquet, on the contrary, will be a good idea for expanding a small room. In this case, light gray floors will bring lightness and coolness to the interior.
By playing with shades of gray, you can achieve a certain mood and volume in the room
Gray floors, regardless of shade, evoke feelings of peace and tranquility. This is their main advantage. But this must be taken into account when designing the work area. The ability of the coating to induce a state of relaxation can negatively affect the level of performance.
Another feature of gray parquet is a certain lifelessness and even coldness that emanates from it if the accompanying design is incorrectly designed. It’s quite easy to avoid discomfort that chills your soul if you add warm decorative details to the interior, from furniture to finishing and decorative elements.
How to combine a gray floor with other colors?
- The extreme options for gray are white and black. By connecting them, gray shades greatly soften their contrast, making the interior less flashy and provocative. But to create compositions with this color you need to have practical experience and professional knowledge. After all, it is not so easy to understand which walls are best combined with a gray floor, so that later there will be fewer problems with the selection of furniture.
- The combination of gray and blue colors looks very harmonious; this composition will fit perfectly into the interiors of a bedroom, living room or office.
- Gray pairs well with cool color palettes, including blues and purples.
- The combination of gray and yellow is quite rare, and an abundance of yellow inclusions should not be allowed, but light yellow-gray stripes would be appropriate.
- The best wallpaper for a gray floor is beige or light green; it will keep the interior cozy and make it elegant at the same time.
What should the wall decoration be like?
To achieve the greatest harmony in a room with a gray floor, it is necessary to calculate the wall cladding. Not all shades of wallpaper can be combined with gray and this should be taken into account. Successful configurations are wallpaper in a light color with gray components, or, in other words, some related cool colors:
- blue;
- violet;
- blue.
Two-tone walls combined with a gray floor
If the parquet has splashes of different colors, choose wallpaper for wall decoration
possible taking into account their color palette. So, for example, gray oak with brown and beige veins combines perfectly with cream or light coffee-colored wallpaper.
It is also necessary to consider the selection of material for wall decoration . In addition to the usual option - wallpaper, you can use natural stone, brick wall parquet, or leave the walls with a concrete base, as is fashionable today, when creating an interior
in a Nordic style and, first of all, diluting the cold atmosphere with design elements of warm colors.
Common mistakes with gray floors
The main disadvantage of a gray floor is its coldness. If the interior is not given warm accents, it will turn into a completely unattractive, lifeless desert. In addition, monotony cannot be allowed here, therefore, if gray doors with an incorrectly selected texture complement the gray floor, then such an interior may be doomed to failure in advance.
If the project has a light gray floor, what walls can harmonize with it? For example, not too bright, dark wallpaper is quite suitable, as well as introducing rather popular metallic-colored furniture into the interior. However, under no circumstances should you polish everything in a gray room until it shines, turning it into a chrome box.
To enliven even a hopelessly “gray” interior, you need to boldly use unusual patterns and ornaments, work with shades, glossy and matte surfaces, combine fur, silk and other textures.
Gray floor in the kitchen
The color of the floor in a gray kitchen or dining area may seem no less attractive, provided that the owners are not afraid of a certain coldness of the atmosphere it creates. The gray floor in the kitchen not only looks presentable, but is also extremely practical, since traces of dirt, grease and stains are much less visible on a gray background.
For small kitchens
A gray-white floor in a small kitchen will be no less acceptable than a combination of gray shades of different saturation, as well as gray-beige and gray-blue. In general, for small rooms, tiles need modest sizes.
If the goal is to visually increase the space, then it is better to lay either tiles with a simple, inconspicuous pattern, or without it at all, in a single color, since the more complex and noticeable the pattern, the more it conceals the space. On the contrary, a kitchen with a floor that has a smooth surface texture will appear more spacious and brighter.
For spacious kitchens
In spacious kitchens, ceramic tiles of any size can be installed, although larger elements look better here. Tile of non-standard shape, for example, hexagonal or with rounded edges, looks great. Here you can try a bunch of shapes and sizes, as well as different installation methods (diagonal, herringbone and others) to achieve an unusual look for the interior.
You can, abandoning stereotypical solutions, grout the tile joints with grout of a contrasting color. Then the grid of tile rows will appear more clearly, which will draw attention to the floor covering. If you use a darker grout, the tiles will appear cleaner and lighter.
Photo of a gray floor in the kitchen:
The combination of a gray floor in the kitchen with walls and furniture
It is very important to find a harmonious combination of the design of the floor, ceiling and walls. Also, you should not lose sight of kitchen furniture and accessories. However, you should always remember the functional features of this room, therefore, even if you have a gray floor in the kitchen, it is hardly worth installing white walls in it, since they will get dirty very quickly.
But if you add a white ceiling and light (but not white) walls to a gray floor, then visually the kitchen will be more spacious and brighter.
You should not try another option, where the ceiling is left in a light tone, but the walls are made darker than the floor covering. With this combination, the overall background becomes too dark, the room fades, becomes gloomy, and visually shrinks in volume.
When choosing wallpaper or tiles for walls, combining the color of the floor in a gray kitchen, you must take into account the degree of natural light in the kitchen room:
- On the sunny side, it is wiser to use cool or neutral tones (green, blue, turquoise) so that even a hot stove does not seem so hot.
- If the kitchen faces north, then it is better to warm up its atmosphere with a warm wall color (orange, yellow, peach). The warming color palette of the walls will make the gray floor more pleasant to perceive.
A gray plinth framing the floor of the same color will visually make its area larger, creating the illusion of its continuation.
White kitchen facades will look bright against the background of a dark gray floor, creating an elegant interior. Fans of playful combinations may wonder: if you make a gray floor in the kitchen, what color of the set should you choose? They can combine gray with acid lemon or yellow, bringing, for example, yellow chairs into the dining room interior, and hanging thin lemon organza on the windows. An excellent combination with a gray floor will be formed by cutlery, dishes and appliances made of stainless steel; fortunately, all this does not require a long search on sale.
Photo of a gray floor in the kitchen interior:
And it’s even better, instead of ordinary tiles, to use gray porcelain tiles for the floor, which is its relative, but has a better design and physical and mechanical characteristics. Gray porcelain tiles for the floor in the kitchen interior can be perfectly combined with furniture of a wide variety of colors. A neutral gray floor will be perfectly enlivened by colored spots of furniture, no matter what they are: metallic, wenge, pine or even white.
Psychologists say that the presence of warm colors in the kitchen stimulates appetite, and cold ones, on the contrary, reduces it. This property is especially important to consider for those who want to lose weight.
At the same time, there is no real reason to say that gray tiles make the kitchen interior dull and nondescript. It is important to find the right combination of materials and shades, and the gray kitchen will become beautiful and sophisticated.
Gray floor in the living room
You can choose a combination of gray with warm shades of wood so that it enhances this impression.
Shades of gray can perfectly emphasize the elegance of high-tech style. Here you also need to be guided by the rule of five colors: in addition to the main one, the interior can combine one additional color and no more than five different shades of gray.
If a gray living room lacks lighting, then to make it visually more spacious, you need to illuminate its walls with soffits, and to make it look sunnier, you can use yellow elements in the decoration of the floor and walls, for example, a large yellow panel or a floor carpet of the same color .
Photo of a gray floor in the living room interior:
Gray floor in the bedroom
A bedroom design with a gray floor can easily be decorated in a neoclassical style if you use an antique-style chandelier with candles, a café-au-lait-colored carpet, and a shiny velvet bedspread in the interior. Gray laminate will perfectly emphasize the charm of such an interior.
Photo of a gray floor in a bedroom design:
Successful combinations - what to combine gray parquet with
Gray flooring looks best in the living room or bedroom. Properly selected elements of furniture and decor will breathe life into the interior. White and black colors go best with gray. Gray in this case softens the contrast of colors, allowing you to create original designs. Furniture made of natural wood in fashionable zebrano or wenge colors goes well with gray.
Summarizing all of the above, it remains to note that gray parquet floors are a worthy solution for interior design, provided you know how to correctly combine colors, decorative elements and furniture. Otherwise, the occurrence of cognitive dissonance in everyone who visits the room is inevitable.
Gray floor combined with gray walls in the bedroom
Gray floor in the bathroom
An attempt to use gray ceramic tiles on the walls and floor of the bathroom will once again emphasize the restraint of forms and the refined simplicity of this room.
It can be safely combined with yellow, red, emerald green, beige and a host of other colors. You can use pearl gray as the main color, which will highlight bright color accents: gilded showers and taps, heated towel rail racks and other interior elements.
Would you like to have a gray floor in your home or have you already decided on it? Share your thoughts in the comments - we are interested in knowing your opinion.
