I thought I hated gray, but this one paint changed my mind and now I use it all over my home

I swore off gray paint for years, and I am a self-confessed gray skeptic. But then I discovered Farrow & Ball Pigeon, and it proved me wrong in the best way, and suddenly gray made sense.

There are times when decorating with gray can be utterly chic, and there are some rooms that should simply never be painted gray. The best gray paint should make a room feel peaceful and hushed, rather than somber and clinical. The former is a tall order, as so many contemporary shades simply can’t deliver.

But here, I shine a light on the gray paint that changed my opinion on gray, and how, and why, Farrow & Ball Pigeon has become a key part of every room in my home.

Gray paint and I have never seen eye to eye. I have never liked it, and have always seen it as the great design cop out.

We’re not talking about a casual dislike, but a full-throated rejection of its cold, default ubiquity in modern interiors. For years, it has masqueraded as a safe, sophisticated choice, blanketing walls in what I can only see as a dreary fog. In my opinion, it deadens rooms, flattens character, and signals a fear of color rather than a mastery of it.

And yet – yet – there is one exception in my home. A gray shade I not only tolerate, but willingly choose: Farrow & Ball Pigeon. In a sea of underwhelming grays, Pigeon is the rare one that elevates a space, without the severe sterility of standard grays.

So, what makes Farrow & Ball Pigeon so special? Pigeon is not a contemporary gray. It’s a gray-green with a blue undertone, and it feels very much like a color with heritage. Most gray paints lean too heavily on either the cool blue or the moody brown side, making them feel either too ice-cold and unwelcoming or too drab and depressing. Not a great recipe for feeling happier at home.

Pigeon, however, balances both green and blue in a way that gives it an almost smoky quality. The green undertones add an earthy, grounding quality that gray too often lacks. It feels more natural and more alive than the flat grays I see in so many interiors. The blue undertones make it feel fresh, perky, and not too muddy, so it doesn’t weigh a space down.

'Slightly stronger than its sibling Blue Gray, it works really well in a west-facing room where the afternoon and evening light gives a complex softness,' explains Patrick O'Donnell, Brand Ambassador at Farrow & Ball. 'It makes for a great exterior woodwork color and feels a little bit more contemporary than the classic ‘sage’ green one often sees around.'

Despite working well in modern interiors, it has the character of a historic paint. The sort of color you’d find on woodwork in an 18th-century English country house, or the pantry in a Georgian townhouse. It's not pretending to be a contemporary neutral paint, it’s grounded in tradition, and that's precisely why it feels like such a timeless paint color.

When friends and family ask me what gray paint I recommend, I fall over myself to urge them to use Pigeon, one of my favorite Farrow & Ball colors. I often suggest it even before I have laid eyes on the space they want to paint, largely because it is a great performer and virtually risk-free.

Its reaction to light is something close to magic. Depending on the natural light available to it, it's hard to believe it's the same color. In a sun-drenched room, it reads as a soft and soothing pale blue paint with sophisticated hints of gray. In the evening, or rooms with a lack of natural light, the green undertones come forward, giving the room a warm, cozy feel that is cocooning and reassuring, but never makes it feel like the walls are closing in on you, as I find so many grays do.

One of the best things about Pigeon is its range of applications. I’ve used it in several places around my home, yes, the person who always dismissed gray as a non-color, and in each case, it has performed exceptionally well.

In my country home, I used it on the panelling in my boot room, it sits perfectly against the natural stone and aged wood. I also used it on my larder doors, having sworn to never take a gray paint anywhere near a kitchen, it is the one gray paint that doesn’t put me in a temper, and it brings some restraint and order to my kitchen.

I’ve also used it extensively on woodwork – door frames, baseboards, trims, and it has proven to be a solid choice for adding tone without introducing too much contrast. If you are ever on the hunt for traditional color ideas, this is certainly one paint I recommend adding to your palette.

In my city apartment, where scale and light are more limited, I use Pigeon in smaller doses. It holds up in low light and never becomes a steel gray, even though my space is exposed to the most dramatic of light changes. One moment it's bathed in sunshine, the next smothered in gloomy cloud, but Pigeon is chameleon-like and changes personality over the course of the day. Its name ‘Pigeon’ makes sense here, it suits this city, especially in these quieter, urban corners.

Bring this color into your home in smaller accents

It goes without saying that it is impossible to bring this exact unique color into your home without using Farrow & Ball paint, but if you love the look but don't want to set about putting paint roller to wall, add some decorative touches in a similar color family. Here are some top picks.

To my mind, there is little point in investing a lot of time and money in furniture and fussing over small decorative accents when the colors in the room are fighting against you. To achieve a timeless and chic look, you may well find yourself searching for the perfect gray paint, and you, like me, might be hoping to find one that doesn’t bring you a sense of seasonal depression.

My advice? Classic to contemporary, in the city or the countryside, if there is one gray paint you should consider, in my view, Pigeon takes the biscuit.