Home » Misc » Paint colors for mudroom

Paint colors for mudroom


7 Perfect Colors to Paint Your Mudroom

By

Ashley Knierim

Ashley Knierim

Ashley Knierim is a home decor expert and product reviewer of home products for The Spruce. Her design education began at a young age. She has over 10 years of writing and editing experience, formerly holding editorial positions at Time and AOL.

Learn more about The Spruce's Editorial Process

Updated on 04/07/20

Sherwin-Williams Balanced Beige SW 7037

Little House of Four

Mudrooms are often the first thing you and your guests see when they enter your home, so why not put as much effort into it as you do every other room in your house? Your mudroom might be part of a double-duty room, like a laundry room that you pass through from the garage, a nook that you've created under the stairs near your front door, or you could be lucky enough to have a whole mudroom entryway to decorate to your heart's content.

The secret to creating a beautiful and functional mudroom is focusing on flow, creating the right organization layout, and decorating with the right colors. Though this little space is a pass-through area, you'll want to give it the same care and style as you would a foyer.

The truth is the prettier your mudroom is, the less likely you'll turn it into a pile of coats, shoes, and knick-knacks that belong elsewhere. It's much easier to let things pile up in a room that lacks style and purpose.

Here are the best paint colors for every mudroom so you can get started redecorating this often neglected space.

Whether your home has a huge mudroom, or simply a space inside the front door to set down your mail and messy boots, pick a paint color that sets the tone for the rest of your home.

Paint Calculator: How Much Paint Do I Need?

Mudroom Paint Color Ideas | Benjamin Moore

Get all the mudroom ideas you need to transform this often-overlooked utility space using our favorite mudroom paint colors.

Turn to light, airy neutrals and vibrant colors to mask wear and tear in mudrooms. And be sure to use the right Benjamin Moore paint products for maximum resiliency and longevity.

A Bright Mudroom Makeover

With walls, door and ceiling all painted in Cotton Balls OC-122 and silvery Thunder AF-685 on the oversized cabinets, this mudroom entryway glows.

For a tough, furniture-like finish—the kind you need in a mudroom—ADVANCE® interior paint is a great choice. It provides surfaces with a luxuriously smooth finish in your choice of 3,500+ colors.

Here, semi-gloss cabinets, painted in ADVANCE, provide a buoyant, reflective quality that maximizes the natural light streaming through the door windows.

If your mudroom does double duty as a laundry room, get paint color combinations and ideas here.

Mudroom: Where Fun Meets Functional

An artisanal wall hanging, a red-and-white striped rug, a well-worn bench—use these ideas to add a sense of fun to a small mudroom.

Here, paint color and home design elements work together to create a cheeky farmhouse style that maximizes the small space. Pure White OC-64 on lower shiplap walls provides a crisp, bright balance to charcoal Amherst Gray HC-167 on the upper walls.

“Red is a great accent color,” says Nivara Xaykao, Benjamin Moore color and design expert, “I love this painted mudroom bench in Sultan’s Palace 2081-20, a refreshing ruby red."

The Serenity of White Paint

Cloud White OC-130, one of our most popular white paint colors, takes center stage in this contemporary, well-organized mudroom. While this space boasts subtle color contrast with a cool Gull Wing Gray 2134-50-painted recessed wall, white is the main attraction on walls, ceiling, shoe storage, and cabinetry.

“There is nothing cleaner than a coat of fresh white paint,” says Nivara. “And when it comes to a mudroom, white paint echoes the end goal: to organize the messiness of every day—and make it all look effortless.”

Posh Meets Practicality

There’s no need to sacrifice style when it comes to a mudroom. In fact, a well-designed mudroom can actually set the tone for the rest of your home!

Here, an ornate area rug, velvet settee, floral art, plush pillows, and other accessories make a great first impression. A bureau with plenty of drawers houses and hides grab-and-go essentials like a dog’s leash or gardening tools.

“This homeowner used furniture and décor that wasn’t being using elsewhere in their home,” says Sharon Grech, Benjamin Moore color and design expert and regular on Canada’s Cityline.

“By pulling these remnant pieces together, they gave them a new life and infused their mudroom with personality.”

Color-wise, Aberdeen Green 631 on walls, trim and ceiling creates a monochromatic envelope of soft green that brings the fresh countryside, indoors.

A Cheery Entryway, with Mudroom-Style Pragmatism

Don’t have a dedicated mudroom? Rework your entryway for optimal functionality, including:

“This bright yellowMarblehead Gold HC-11 door welcomes guests as they pull off muddy shoes or dry off wet dogs,” says Sharon. "Vibrant paint colors can also work wonders on functional room elements, like the transom beam pictured here in Caribbean Blue Water 2055-30,” she adds.

Ready to get started?

Use the photo and video visualizers on the free Benjamin Moore Color Portfolio® app to see how color can transform your mudroom into a colorful, welcoming space. As always, sample the paint colors you like to in different lighting conditions to choose your final paint colors with confidence.

Find Your Color

Take advantage of our color tools to find a paint color you love!

See Color Tools

Hire a Contractor

Get tips on finding a professional painting contractor for your next project.

Hire a Contractor

ADVANCE® Interior Paint

Learn why painting professionals choose ADVANCE for its durability and furniture-like finish.

Explore ADVANCE

paint preparation and design options

Deciding to make cosmetic repairs in the house on your own, without resorting to the help of professionals, for example, to wallpaper the walls of a room or paint them, then the question certainly arises - what color to choose for decoration. It is especially difficult to make a choice when it comes to a small space, like a corridor. Let's try to figure out what color of the walls in the hallway is best suited.

Let's start from the end, let's see what kind of hallway we have, how to correctly distribute the colors and choose the right tone for the walls. If you are sure that the quality of your own painting of the corridor will be quite satisfactory, proceed by choosing the most suitable time of the year for this and carefully preparing the room and materials.

Contents

What needs to be prepared?

Walls

The walls in the hallway are subject to active "wear and tear", so potholes, stains, chips and smudges often appear on them. The removal of old paint or wallpaper (if necessary), a hard brush and a soapy solution (a 3% soda solution is also suitable), and leveling with putties help to put the work surface in order.

If you notice that the walls are “infected” with fungal mold, then before applying the primer, it is necessary to treat the infected areas with special chemicals. means, and then remove the layer of dead fungi. If necessary, the procedure should be repeated.

Stages of preparatory work:

1. Fill the cleaned area. Gypsum putty is usually used for this.

2. Let the putty dry completely and apply a primer.

Putty and deep primer are a must! Without them, all the imperfections of the surface will appear under the paint, and the paint itself will lie unevenly, whitish spots will remain or the texture of the paint will not appear.

Paint

Choosing the right paint for the corridor is not an easy task, given the huge range of proposals from manufacturers. We will look for "anti-vandal" according to the parameters:

These parameters are met by coatings that combine the properties of interior and exterior paints - enamels, glazes, two-component polyurethane, water-dispersion paints based on acrylic and latex.

Alkyd enamels are good, but you can work with them only with open windows and doors, because. when dried, they emit a sharp pungent smell of coloring pigments, which persists for 3-5 days. There is an alkyd with polyurethane without such odors, but the prices for it "bite".

Washable water "dispersion" is perfect for painting the walls in the hallway.

Acrylic styrene paints are also suitable for solving the problem of changing colors in the corridor. The best version of this series is butadiene dispersion for interior work.

All these paints offer a variety of texture options: from matte glossy or brilliant lacquer to the effect of wet silk or soft velor.

Having finished selecting the paint, according to its properties, do not forget to stock up on brushes, rollers, spray gun (according to the application technique), masking tape (for even separation of painted surfaces) and stencils if desired.

Choice of color and color zones

Before opening the catalog with colors, evaluate your hallway. Advantages? Disadvantages The color of the walls you choose in the corridor can not only change the appearance of the room, but also correct, mitigate visible flaws.

In the video: a combination of colors in the interior.

It is known that if the ceiling height is disproportionately high in relation to the hallway area, then the corridor itself seems uninhabited and uncomfortable with any wall pattern. This shortcoming can be easily corrected by painting the ceiling and the upper part of the walls with the same color up to the front door opening. In this case, a light or pure white ceiling, “lowered” onto the wall, is separated from the rest of the area with a baguette or panel in a contrasting color, delimiting the wall from the ceiling.

If the high hallway is also narrow, then consider finishing the doorway with other materials, or simply paint the entire door wall in a rich, contrasting, dark color is best. This will visually “push apart” the walls in the hallway, make it wider.

What color should the hallway be painted if there is a low ceiling? In this case, the color of the walls should either end up right next to the ceiling, or “crawl” onto it partially. The border between the colors is separated by a contrasting stripe. With this technique, it is desirable to make the ceiling a reflective surface, for which we will give preference to light colors with glossy structures.

For a hallway with a low ceiling, furniture with a shiny lacquer surface and large mirrors will be in demand.

You can also use the optical effect of “fullness” and “thinness” known to women using vertical and horizontal stripes and lines. Vertical - "thinness", horizontal - "fullness". However, using this effect, it is necessary to correctly select not only the width of the stripes and their combinations, but also the brightness of the colors, otherwise we will get the topic: “How to paint a corridor in the style of a chicken-pocket. ” Do not overload the corridor with color spots!

Do not overload a small hallway with colored bas-reliefs, and photo wallpapers with a spatial pattern on one of the walls will only be welcome. You can draw a beautiful picture with a landscape “leaving” into space if you are confident in the artist’s own abilities. A high-quality fresco, painted by a professional artist, will undoubtedly not only decorate the appearance of the entrance to the house, but also give a special personality to your room.

When choosing a color directly, remember that dark and juicy tones visually reduce the size of any room, light and soft shades, as it were, increase them. Therefore, light colors are appropriate for small hallways, while dark or intensely sharp tones are acceptable for large hallways.

All red-yellow colors (especially saturated ones) seem to the eye to protrude, convex against the background of pale pastel colors, which “brings” the walls together, reducing the area of ​​​​the room. All beige, creamy, blue and light green - move away and make your hallway more spacious.

If the corridor has natural light, then with windows located on the north side, we choose “warm” colors of colors. With windows on the south side - "cold". "Warm" - all colors dominated by sunny shades of yellow, red, beige, apricot, chocolate, etc. All "cold" colors contain shades of blue.

The green color beloved by many can be both “warm” and “cold”, everything will depend on the amount of white, yellow or blue color in it.

When using stencils, the same rules apply:

Interestingly, a large bright pattern under the ceiling will produce an expansion effect. If you are afraid to make a mistake with the choice, you can’t decide what color to paint the walls in the corridor, or how to choose the right accents, there is a win-win option. Buy floor paint in the same color as the walls and ceiling, and cover all surfaces with the same color.

Looks fresh, lively and creative! The main thing is that the paint should be pastel colors, it is not recommended to use rich colors. After painting, protect the walls from “injuries” for a month, until the paint sets completely, acquiring the wear resistance stated on the label.

After complete drying, it is not recommended to clean the surface with powder or abrasive pastes, using brushes and iron sponges, a warm solution of a neutral detergent of medium alkalinity is sufficient. Average alkalinity - no higher than 9pH.

Beautiful color combinations (2 videos)

Hallway design options (28 photos)

How to paint a corridor - the choice of paint and tools

The corridor is a kind of visiting card of the house. Not only is this the first room that guests and hosts enter when entering the house, it is also subject to greater wear and tear. In order for the repair to last for a long time, and the walls to be beautiful and well-groomed, you need to know how to properly paint the corridor and what materials to choose for this.

Content:

9000 9000

for covering walls are perfect paints. Today, such materials are presented in a wide range of prices, on which their quality depends, respectively. Most often, the paint is sold in white. However, you can add a special color to it, which will give the paint the desired shade. Important! Experts advise to paint the walls in darker shades below, and switch to lighter ones at the top.

back to contents ↑

Tools and materials for repair

If painting is chosen for the repair of the hallway, then a beginner will be able to cope with this task. Need to prepare:

Water-dispersion paints are suitable for painting walls in the corridor, as they have good vapor permeability and are not afraid of water and moisture. Such materials include several types of water-dispersion compositions:

  1. Polyvinyl acetate. This is the cheapest of these materials, which is characterized by poor resistance to a humid environment, so they can only be used for finishing dry rooms;
  2. Styrene-butadiene. This material is highly resistant to moisture, but has limited light fastness. Therefore, this paint is used only for interior work. Important! Styrene-butadiene water-dispersion paints are not recommended for outdoor use, as they turn yellow when exposed to light.
  3. Acrylic. These paints are more expensive than others, but their scope is the widest, due to their quality characteristics. This material has high moisture and vapor permeability, dries quickly, retains color in all conditions and is not afraid of ultraviolet radiation. The paint is easily applied to the surface, adheres well to the wall and allows you to even out small cracks up to 0.5 millimeters, resulting in an even soft coating.

Alkyd enamel can also be used to finish the corridor. Important! The composition of alkyd enamel contains harmful organic components, so the room will stink strongly until the paint is completely dry.

The room will need to be constantly ventilated for 3-5 days until the unpleasant smell disappears. You can also buy odorless polyurethane paints on the market, but they are very expensive and not everyone can afford to buy them.

back to contents ↑

Preparation

Repair in the hallway is carried out in several steps:

  1. First remove the old coating with a spatula; Advice! If wallpaper was pasted on the walls, before removing it, it is worth moistening it with water and letting it stand for a couple of minutes. The paper will get wet and be easier to peel off the surface.
  2. Next, remove all debris and dust from the ceiling, walls and floor;
  3. All cracks and depressions on the surface are puttied;
  4. Next, everything is primed and proceed to the finishing plaster, which completely level the surface;
  5. When the putty layer dries, it is sanded with fine sandpaper, dusted and a deep-penetrating acrylic primer is applied. Now the hallway can be painted.

back to contents ↑

What color to choose

The choice of the color of the walls in the hallway is influenced by its size and degree of illumination. In a small and narrow corridor, which is illuminated only with a chandelier, it is better to choose paint in light colors. A white, gray, pale blue or light beige shade is well suited. Also, for a small room, you should come up with a horizontal pattern that will visually expand the space.

Painting

Color is added to white water-based paint and everything is mixed well. If the paint is thick, you can add a little water. The composition will become more liquid, and it will be convenient to apply it to the surface.

Tip! It is better to add color to all the paint at once, so that the shade is the same over the entire surface and does not differ in tone.

Pour some paint into a special container, where it is convenient to dip the roller, and start painting the corridor. Apply the paint from top to bottom and make sure that all layers lie next to each other. Panels made with a darker shade of paint look beautiful in the hallway. It is necessary to choose a tone so that the overall picture looks harmonious. At the junction of light and dark paint, you can make a decorative border.

back to contents ↑

Patchwork painting

You can paint the walls in the hallway in a patchwork style. To do this, you will need: a roller 10 cm long, a brush with a pile of 3 cm, narrow adhesive tape, a masking cord and a long level.

  1. First, using a level and a broker, mark the walls into squares or rectangles of different or the same size. It all depends on the size of the hallway. If the room is small, then the figures should be small;
  2. Apply masking tape along the marking line;
  3. Next, paint is applied over the marked squares. What color to choose for painting the wall, you need to decide in advance. You can use several different colors, both contrasting and the same in tone;
  4. After the paint is completely dry, carefully remove the tape. The edging that remains after the adhesive tape can be painted in a darker tone at the bottom, turning into a lighter one at the top.

back to contents ↑

Stone imitation painting

It is also possible to use the technology of painting under natural stone. For this, a matte paint with a granular structure is selected. And what color it will be - the owners choose, the main thing is that it looks like a shade of a stone. First, a thick layer of paint is applied to the surface. Next, a crumpled rag is taken into the hands and all the painted walls are pressed down with it. Thus, it seems that the hallway is finished with natural stone.

A harmoniously designed corridor will be a great addition to the design of the entire room.

Learn more