Paint colors for your home, inside and out
Bathroom · colors from 5 paintings
Good bathroom color schemes start with a light wall and keep the dark colors for small, hard-working pieces. Each scheme below is the palette of one painting, split into walls, main color, wood, one bold piece and one textile.
Quick answer
Pick one scheme and keep its light wall color on the largest surface. Use the blue-gray #88979E or the deep teal #596A6A on a vanity or door, and the darkest tones only in towels or accessories.
Each scheme is one painting's palette, split into walls, main furniture, wood, one bold piece and one textile.
From Imaginary View with a Tomb by the Lagoon, Canaletto (Giovanni Antonio Canal)
#FFF4DE#E1C18A#826B50#AA8E78#42352APaint the walls a warm cream, use the gold as a vanity or cabinet color and add the dark brown only in a towel.
From Young Clergyman Reading, Martinus Rørbye
#DFE1E0#AB8566#7F592F#4E371F#AB5242A pale gray wall with a leather-brown wood tone and a brick-red towel gives a bathroom a calm, grounded feel.
From The Actor Maximilian Korn in a Landscape, Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller
#FDDBA0#88979E#6E583A#B25240#E3A489Warm cream walls with a blue-gray vanity make a bathroom that feels bright and a little cool at once.
From Portrait of a Woman, Cornelis de Vos
#EECAB1#914939#6B5440#901830#610F32Soft peach walls with deep red accents suit a powder room where you want warmth and a little drama.
From Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare, Claude Monet
#CED5D9#7D8B7C#6B5E4A#6C859E#303E46Pale gray-blue walls with a green-gray vanity and a dark slate towel give a cool, tidy look.
Pick which color goes on the walls, the big furniture and the bold piece. Floors, shadows and trim follow your choice.
The framed picture on the wall is Imaginary View with a Tomb by the Lagoon.
Start with the light. A bathroom with a window can carry a mid-tone, while an interior bathroom with only artificial light does better with walls above LRV 60. In this set the lightest wall colors are the cream #FFF4DE at LRV 91 and the pale gray #DFE1E0 at LRV 75.
Then choose one main color for the vanity or cabinet. The blue-gray #88979E at LRV 30 and the slate teal #596A6A at LRV 14 are the two cool options. The leather brown #7F592F is the warm option.
Finally, keep the darkest colors, #42352A and #1E1B2E, for items you can change easily, such as towels, a rug or a mirror frame. That way the bathroom stays bright even when the scheme has depth.
A bathroom ceiling is best in a light color, because the room is usually small and humid. Use the wall color or a white one step lighter than it. The cream #FFF4DE and the pale gray #DFE1E0 both work overhead.
For trim, either match the wall for a soft look or go one shade lighter for a clean edge. The cool schemes look better with a trim that has no yellow in it, while the warm cream scheme looks natural with a trim in the same cream.
For the floor, warm wood tones and tan tile go with the brown schemes. A gray or white tile fits the blue-gray and teal schemes. The deep brown #7F592F shows how dark a wood vanity can go before the room feels heavy.
Bathroom bulbs are often cool or very warm, and both change the color. Under warm bulbs, the cream and the brown tones turn yellower. Under cool bulbs, the blue-gray #88979E and the teal #596A6A look cleaner and a little colder.
Daylight changes things as well. In a north-facing bathroom, the pale grays lose warmth and the blues look deeper. In a south-facing one, the cream wall brightens, and the dark brown accents read less heavy.
Steam and mirrors add glare, so a matte or eggshell finish usually looks better than a high gloss. If the room has no window, choose a wall from the light end of the palette and rely on the vanity for contrast, because a dark wall with LRV 14 or less will make a small bathroom feel closed in.
Paint a sample on a large board or on poster board, at least two feet wide, and move it around the room. Check it next to the vanity, near the mirror and beside the tub.
Look at it in the morning, at midday and at night with the lights on, because the same color can look quite different. Place it next to your tile, since tile color often decides whether a wall looks warm or cool.
If you are unsure between two options, choose the lighter one for the walls and use the darker one on the vanity or door. Because every color here was measured from a painting, the hex value shows the color on screen, not on a wall, so always compare a real sample before you buy a full can.
Choose a light wall such as the cream #FFF4DE or the pale gray #DFE1E0, then add one mid-tone like #88979E on the vanity. Keep the darkest colors for towels.
Yes, in small amounts. Colors with an LRV of 14 or less, such as #596A6A, suit a vanity or an accent wall in a room with a window.
Warm cream walls and a brown wood tone go well with blue-gray. The Landscape Blue and Cream scheme shows this combination.
A matte or eggshell finish hides surface flaws and reduces glare. Use a paint made for bathrooms where steam is heavy.
No. The paint matches are the closest measured ones. Always check a real sample on your wall, because light and neighboring colors change how it looks.
A card with every color on this page, its LRV and the paintings it comes from. Pin it, or take it to the paint store.
Painting images: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Art Institute of Chicago, public domain (CC0). Colors measured by Light & Pigment. Paint names belong to their brands and matches are approximate. Colors look different on screen than on a wall, so always test a sample.
