Best Neutral Paint Colors – Flip House Color Palette

I am getting a lot of questions about the paint we used in our recent flip house. I used neutral paint colors and not only do I want to share it all with you, but I want to keep record of this palette so I have it for future projects. 🙂

The hardest thing to do is pick out paint colors from the small swatches they have in stores. In the beginning of our DIY journey, Matt and I would paint and repaint walls in our home like we would vacuum the floors. We did it often. Sometimes weekly because I didn’t get the color right. 

Those days are over. I wrote a blog post full of tips for choosing white paint colors HERE and a lot of those same principles hold true when you are choosing neutral paint colors. When we bought our last flip house, everything in it was yellow or beige. Nothing had been changed in years and I wanted to go in the opposite direction when we made it over. 

Back in the day, neutral paint colors would get a bad rap because everyone thought it meant white or beige. Now, neutral paint colors mean something different.

Neutral paint colors come in any shade. Gray tones are really popular right now. They go well with any style and it is a little more exciting than white. In our flip house journey, we haven’t had to stage in the end because they sold so fast. When I am picking out paint colors, I need to keep in mind that we will be showing it unfurnished. Neutral colors add more interest than white and can make the rooms feel welcoming and cozy without anything in them. You can set the tone and feel of a room with the paint color alone. 

Paint colors look different all day long. When you are picking out colors, always buy the samples. Bring them home and put them on the wall and look at them at different times of the day. Look at the color on sunny days and cloudy days. Check the color at night and in the morning. You will see in this post that I used the same paint color in a couple of different rooms, but the color looks totally different.

I didn’t edit the photos much either so you can see how different the paint color looks inside one room. The shadows and where the sunlight hits in different parts of the room, makes the color look different from one wall to the next. I love that. You can get an entirely different look just by where the room sits in the house and how the light bounces in the room. 

You can see this flip house on the day we bought it in my video tour HERE. 

We started the paint work in this house by giving all the ceilings a fresh coat of white paint. 

Then, we were ready to choose some colors.

Neutral Paint Colors We Used In The Fourth Flip House:

Dining Room:

The dining room is right off the kitchen and the hallway. I chose the color “Fog”. I had it mixed at regular strength and it looked great!

* When I started getting questions about the paint colors, people were asking me for the exact mix so I took a photo of all the lids of each paint we used so you can make sure to get the exact color if you like it. 

Neutral Paint Colors – Living Room:

I chose the color “Doves Wings” for the living room and hallway. It was the right amount of gray to stand out against the white trim, but still leave the room feeling open and airy. Everyone loved this color when they stepped into the house. It is a gray color, but yet it feels warm and inviting. 

Neutral Paint Colors – First Floor Bedroom:

In the bedroom on the first floor, I really wanted to use the same paint that we did in our lower level family room in our house.  You can see that post HERE. The color is called “Gatherings” and it is from the Magnolia Paint line. The color was so pretty when we put in on the walls in our house and we still had a gallon left over so I knew I would love it in this room.

Neutral Paint Colors – Bathroom:

 We used the same color in the bathroom that we did the dining room. It looks totally different in each room and it looks totally amazing in both. 

Neutral Paint Colors – Entire Upstairs Level: 

I wanted to keep the upstairs cohesive and make it super bright. If you look back at what it looked like when we bought the house HERE, I had to go in the complete opposite direction. The upstairs was such a dark and depressing area, but it had so much space and so much potential to be an inviting level of the house. I used the color “Aria”. I think I had them lighten it 50% if I remember right. It looked almost white, but it was what the upstairs needed. If I were to use this color again, I may have them lighten it only 25% depending on the space I am using it in. 

Neutral Paint Colors – Wood Floor Upstairs:

We finally got to paint some wood floors in this flip house! Matt and I were so excited about this. When we ripped up the nasty carpet in one of the bedrooms upstairs, there were wide-planked wood floors underneath. There was some paint splattered on some of the boards so it was the perfect opportunity to paint. It was so much fun sharing this part of the makeover and you all loved it so much that I wrote an entire post about the color and the kind of paint we used HERE. 

Neutral Paint Colors – Kitchen:

I wanted to keep the kitchen light and airy even though I painted the cabinets “True Black”. There is so much natural light that comes through the main level so I knew white walls would bounce the light off of everything well. I just used the base level paint from Magnolia Home Paint for the walls. 

Neutral Paint Colors – Brick Room:

I used the same white paint on all of the paneled walls in the brick room. Again, this room has so much natural light. I wanted to keep it bright.

The brick wall was painted black. I shared all about that process in the post HERE. 

Basement:

Just like the top floor, we kept the basement all one color. It is a dark basement so we went with a lighter neutral color. I used the “Fog” color we did in the dining room and the bathroom, but had it mixed at 50%.

Garage Door:

I liked the color of the garage door and shutters when we bought the house, but the garage door needed a new coat of paint. I took a paint chip in and had it matched. 

There is a door on the left side of the garage that I also painted in the same color. 

I think that does it for all the paint we used in the house. Just like with every flip house we have done, there was a lot of paint in this one. Paint will always be a huge part of our flip houses because it is the one thing that makes the biggest impact without a lot of money spent. 

As you can see, we stuck with a few colors and had them mixed at different strengths so they looked different. You want the paint colors to be cohesive throughout your home, so keep it simple. I think part of the overwhelm of choosing colors is that people think they have to choose a different color for each space. Keep it simple. Stick with a color palette you love and change up the decor in different rooms to give them a different identity.  

I hope this post helped you with paint colors and maybe inspired you to add a new color to you home!

What is your favorite neutral paint color?

PIN THIS POST!

If you liked this Neutral Paint Colors post, you will also love these tips and ideas:

How To Use The Wagner Paint Sprayer

How To Pick Out Carpet

Best Paint For Furniture