Small Laundry Room Color Ideas, From the Paint to the Countertop

Check which way the window faces

Fixes: paint that looks wrong at homeCosts nothing to check

Daylight changes paint, so a color can look warm in the store and cold at home. Sherwin-Williams' guide to room direction says north-facing rooms get the least light, and cool light, so a north-facing laundry room wants a warm color, one with a warm undertone (the faint tint under the main color). South-facing rooms get warm light, so most colors work there. East- and west-facing rooms change through the day, so choose for the hour you do laundry.

Also check the color's LRV, short for light reflectance value: a number from 0 to 100 for how much light the paint reflects. Higher means brighter walls.

Try this: point your phone's compass app out of the biggest window. That reading is the way the room faces.

No window? Pick the color under your own bulbs

Fixes: a dim room with no windowSample before you buy

Many laundry rooms get no daylight at all. White is not the only answer there: Benjamin Moore's laundry room guide points to softer, fresher colors for a windowless room, such as Hancock Green HC-117, a soft green.

Without daylight, the bulb decides how a color looks. Under warm bulbs, choose as you would for a sunny south-facing room; under white or cool bulbs, choose as for a north-facing one.

Try this: tape a paint sample beside the machines and check it under the room's own light, morning and night.

Pair gray, white or blue-gray with the machines

Fixes: walls that clash with the machinesSuits white, dark or silver machines

The walls have to get along with the machines. In Benjamin Moore's words, "Gray and white paint colors pair well with white- and graphite-colored appliances, so they are popular in the laundry room." Graphite is a dark gray machine finish. Stainless or silver machines are a light gray, so a white or soft gray wall suits them too.

For more color, try a blue-gray such as Solitude AF-545, a rich blue-gray. A blue-gray wall brings color without fighting white or dark machines. Keeping gray cabinets? Avoid one big block of gray: paint the wall a lighter or darker gray, or add a woodgrain top over the machines.

Try this: hold the paint chip against your own machine, in the room's own light.

Plan the trim and cabinets with the walls

Fixes: too many whitesFewer choices to make

Two plans keep a small room calm. One: a single white for the trim, ceiling and cabinets, as color expert Arianna Cesa suggests in Benjamin Moore's guide; the example there is Distant Gray OC-68, a white despite the name. Change only the sheen, how shiny the dried paint is.

Two: soft walls with a deeper shade of the same color on the shelves and cabinets. The guide shows it in soft yellow, as a way to make a small room look bigger and brighter.

Try this: on one paint chip strip, take a light shade for the walls and a darker one for the cabinets.

Add one bold color where it counts

Fixes: a plain, forgettable roomPick one spot, not four

Small does not have to mean pale. Benjamin Moore's guide says a small laundry room can still "go big on style," and shows Blue Danube 2062-30, a bold blue, adding depth to an otherwise all-white room. Give the bold color one job: one wall, painted stripes or the floor.

Or go dark on every wall, like the room at the top of this page: navy walls, yet the corner reads bright, because the machines and the top in front of them are white. A fully dark small room can work when the top and the machines stay light.

Try this: choose the bold color last, so it has one clear place to go.

Let a wood-look top warm up a cool palette

Next to a busy pattern, keep the top plain

Fixes: a room with too much going onFinishes with no grain

Patterned wallpaper, busy tile or veined stone already gives the eye plenty, and a woodgrain on top adds one more pattern. A top with no grain lets the pattern stay the star. On our counter, Glacier White (plain white) and Slate Grey (flat charcoal) have no grain at all.

The room in idea 6 works because its pattern is two colors and has no grain; next to veined stone or busy tile, go plain. Pull the top's color from the pattern, such as a gray from a gray-veined cabinet.

Try this: squint at the pattern from the doorway and repeat the color you still see on the top.