Agreeable Gray

19 February 2022, 11:06 AM

Steve Miller

Agreeable Gray

Have you ever wondered who sits around choosing the names for paint colors? How much does it pay and where do I sign up?

Take this house, for example. The main rooms upstairs are painted “Agreeable Gray.” Fair enough. The basement is painted in what I keep thinking of as “Tolerable Tan” or “Unobjectionable Beige”, but is actually called “Attractive Beige.” The two are close enough that when I touch up walls painted with one of the two colors with the wrong one I can’t tell - but Sharon can.

Which made me think about paint colors we’ve used over the years. My favorite color name was “Puffin Muffin” - pretty much the color of cantaloupe. We painted the living room that color in the ‘70’s and our friends liked it so much they went home and painted their own living rooms the same color. It went well with bakers racks and macrame owls.

My Dad liked to name colors, although he would never have made it as a color-namer. He called the color of their house “Bridle Path Tan”, and the the station wagon was “sh_t-brindle brown. Mom wouldn’t let him choose colors after that.

Do you have any memorable color names to share?

Did you ever watch “Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House”? It should be required viewing for anyone considering a house project, and the color selection process in that movie is particularly entertaining.

19 February 2022, 11:12 AM

wtg

Ben Moore Cayman Islands. Memorable to me because I've never been to the Cayman Islands and wondered why the color is named after them:

https://www.benjaminmoore.com/...an-islands?color=952

19 February 2022, 01:47 PM

piqué

My missoula house was clad in steel siding I called "baby poop yellow." I loathed it but wasn't about to paint it and then have to keep repainting it. When I put a charcoal gray roof on the house it improved it quite a bit.

19 February 2022, 02:06 PM

dolmansaxlil

When I taught grade 7/8 art one of our activities was to create a series of paint chips using colours they mixed themselves and then give them names. I added in requirements to demonstrate their understanding of some literary devices and parts of speech (x number of names had to use alliteration, for example. It was super fun both for students and for me marking them!

19 February 2022, 03:30 PM

CHAS

Have a "Salt Blue" stained house in Missouri.

19 February 2022, 05:50 PM

Mikhailoh

You sure that's not Accessible Beige?

I love Agreeable Gray. Nice warm gray without any yellow. Out upstairs bath is in it. At a designer's advice we painted the family room Accessible Beige and I just loathe it. Cannot wait to change it.

19 February 2022, 06:44 PM

Axtremus

“Antique White”

I do not really know but imagine nail polish and lipstick colors have similarly creative names for their respective markets?

19 February 2022, 07:31 PM

Steve Miller

quote:
Originally posted by Mikhailoh:
You sure that's not Accessible Beige?

I love Agreeable Gray. Nice warm gray without any yellow. Out upstairs bath is in it. At a designer's advice we painted the family room Accessible Beige and I just loathe it. Cannot wait to change it.

Yup. You’re right. It’s “Accessible Beige”.

Is there an “Inaccessible Beige”?

19 February 2022, 07:32 PM

Steve Miller

quote:
Originally posted by Mikhailoh:
You sure that's not Accessible Beige?

I love Agreeable Gray. Nice warm gray without any yellow. Out upstairs bath is in it. At a designer's advice we painted the family room Accessible Beige and I just loathe it. Cannot wait to change it.

Interesting. Put a swatch of one over the other. They are nearly the same color.

19 February 2022, 09:56 PM

wtg

19 February 2022, 10:40 PM

Steve Miller

https://youtu.be/s33ScN4D-HU

20 February 2022, 08:34 AM

Mikhailoh

quote:
Originally posted by Steve Miller:
quote:
Originally posted by Mikhailoh:
You sure that's not Accessible Beige?

I love Agreeable Gray. Nice warm gray without any yellow. Out upstairs bath is in it. At a designer's advice we painted the family room Accessible Beige and I just loathe it. Cannot wait to change it.

Interesting. Put a swatch of one over the other. They are nearly the same color.

They are close, but not the same. Colors are tricky. I find the beige to be a bit muddy, where the gray is a much clearer color. I do prefer clearer colors.

20 February 2022, 08:55 AM

wtg

The formulas are very similar.

Accessible Beige: R:209 G:199 B:184 LRV:58

Agreeable Gray: R:209 G:203 B:193 LRV:60

The direction and amount of light coming through windows, the color of furniture and floors, and heaven knows what else all seem to affect how a color looks. We used Cayman Islands in a bathroom and I swore one wall looked completely different from the other three.

Our painter also told us that the color can look different depending on the tint base. Different sheens can tint differently. And paints (both tint bases and pigments) have been changing chemically over the years as manufacturers have worked to eliminate VOCs. It affects the final color.

20 February 2022, 09:32 AM

Axtremus

quote:
Originally posted by wtg:
Accessible Beige: R:209 G:199 B:184 LRV:58

Agreeable Gray: R:209 G:203 B:193 LRV:60

Pffftttt … those color designers must be blind. It should be obvious to the most casual observers that beige would be most accessible with G:200.8 and gray most agreeable with R:208.3 .