My 20 All-Time Favorite Benjamin Moore Paint Colors

June 28, 2020
36 Comments
Posted in: interior paint colors

Hi Everyone,

Whew! What a week it’s been. I’m back in New York for the time being. My tooth got fixed.

That was on Thursday. It was hot out, but I got the car packed, including Joe, in his little spot on the floor in the passenger seat next to me.

The car wouldn’t start.

Again.

Dead Battery.

I’ll cut to the chase. I took Joe out of the hot car and sat him nearby in the shade. And, also gave him a little water. And, I made a mental note not to forget him!

It took the guy from AAA a good 90 minutes to show up. And, then, a good hour to replace the battery. I kept looking at my GPS, and it had me arriving at my dentist, 115 miles away about five minutes before my appointment, but I hadn’t left yet!

Oh, you already know what happened.

That’s right. In my worry about getting to the dentist on time, I did forget about poor Joe. What’s worse, I didn’t even realize until I was 2/3 of the way into my trip. Imagine my panic on I-91 when I realized what I had done? I called Cale, who happily said, he’d go and fetch Joe and take care of him.

For those, who don’t know who Joe is, he’s my five and a half-year-old half-dead plant. But, he means the world to me. Here’s Joe shortly before we left New York last May.( you have to scroll down to see him)

(And, yes, I realize that he’s outgrown his pot.)

Cale knows how attached I am to my dear plant. And so he had a little sadistic fun by telling me that Joe was crying when he showed up. Honestly, the very thought makes me want to throw up.

Good God! What an eccentric nutjob I’ve become! However, Joe has become a surrogate child. And, that’s why I need to move closer to a real one!

But, Guys! Thank you again for all of your kind notes. I’m still reading them! If you missed the news about a big change coming my way, you can read about it here.

And, I do want to keep talking about my new home; of course, I will. But I thought I would take a break from that to provide some variety.

So, this is a re-working of a post from 2016 about my favorite Benjamin Moore Paint Colors.

However, instead of 16 colors, I added four more. So, now it’s my 20 favorite Benjamin Moore Paint Colors.

I added two more shades of white, a cool gray and a black. But, really, there are so many wonderful colors. And, if you’d like to have a larger list and don’t have it yet, please consider purchasing the Laurel Home Essential Paint and Palette Collection. It’s 144 Benjamin Moore Paint Colors. These 20 are part of the collection. The Palette portion is when I take all of the colors and put them into palettes, 40 mood boards with furniture and much more. You can read more about the paint collection starting here.

So, let’s get into the colors.

MY 20 FAVORITE BENJAMIN MOORE PAINT COLORS

I’ll begin with the four colors I just added.

SIMPLY WHITE – It’s not at all a stark white. And, it does not read at all yellow. It’s a terrific shade of white and I would say you probably can’t go wrong with it, either as a trim or wall color. But, of course, always test first. For more of this terrific kitchen, please go here.

And, the other white is another popular shade and the one I chose for my bedroom to go with my lovely Mural Sources wallpaper.

WHITE DOVE

Oh, I so wish I could take this wallpaper with me to my new home! When I arrived home at 6:00PM on Thursday, the light in my bedroom was so lovely and the room looked magical to me. I am going to have to do a few things to this place. I would like to sell it.

For times I need/want to come back to NY, I can stay someplace else.

There is no point in shelling out over $800 a month if I’m not going to be here very often. Plus, I would love to put the money for the apartment sale into fixing up and furnishing the new place.

That reminds me! Remember this open concept mess I wrote about four years ago?

Well, it FINALLY sold!

I wanted to include a black this time and so I chose is Benjamin Moore’s Onyx.

There are several great shades of black in my curated paint collection. And actually, Benjamin Moore’s plain black is quite fine. Onyx is a tad softer and a touch warmer without looking brown.

Rurally Screwed

Lovely staircase make-over with a newel post painted in Benjamin Moore ONYX.

This window frame painted in Onyx was from a consultation I did in 2015. It was one of the last ones I did before stopping all of that a few months later. If you open up the link, you’ll see how I almost helped my clients make a big mistake. Fortunately, they ended up with Onyx and were totally happy.

The last of the four new colors is a cool gray.

WICKHAM GRAY. It is a touch lighter than another favorite, Quiet Moments which is below. You can see Wickham Gray in this post along with a bunch of other great gray-blues.

These colors are often referred to as “haint blue.” It’s that indescribable color that’s not gray or blue or green, but a combination of all of them. But, some haint blues are brighter than this one.

COTTON BALLS

I guess anyone who’s been reading my blog for more than a week knows that I love Cotton Balls. This is a white that does what you tell it to do! And, it’s sloppily painted onto my living room cabinet.

SWISS COFFEE

Darryl Carter (this is his gorgeous room) has a line of Benjamin Moore paint colors, and Swiss Coffee is one of them only he calls it Hanover White.

I don’t know for sure if the room above is Swiss Coffee/Hanover White or not.

It doesn’t matter. It’s a lovely, warm, but not yellow-white with the right amount of gray.

It is also a superb color for the OUTSIDE of your home if you’d like to paint it white.

IVORY WHITE

Sorry, I cheated. This cabinet is white dove. What’s the difference? Not a lot. Ivory White is just a little creamier, is all. Both are fabulous white colors for cabinetry, walls, and trim. For the only six white paint colors, I’ve ever used, click here.

ELEPHANT TUSK

is one of those colors that can look gold, khaki, or cream depending on the light. It’s a wonderful neutral and a great alternative to builder’s beige.

A job we did a few years ago.

CLASSIC GRAY

Classic Gray is a whisper of a warm gray that sometimes has a very slight lavender undertone, which is very appealing. For more wonderful warm gray paint colors, please go here.

Bobby McAlpine

RICHMOND GRAY HC-96

This is one of my all-time go-to colors. It’s another fantastic neutral. Not too pale, but not dark. It can go anywhere. However, I’ve used it at least three times in a bedroom; one adult and two boy’s rooms.

DeVol Kitchens

KINGSPORT GRAY HC-86

Kingsport Gray is the quintessential putty or drab ware color. It always makes me think of Martha Stewart. It’s a classic shade and looks quite fabulous in older homes. This is a good one for painted brick, cabinetry, and libraries too!

Mona Ross Berman via Lonny

QUIET MOMENTS

This is in my top three favorite colors. (but don’t ask me what the other two are.) I’ve specified it more than any other color– especially for master bedrooms. It’s a color that everyone loves! It’s just the perfect blend of gray, blue, and green.

CLEVELAND GREEN

I included one of the boards from the Paint Palette and Home Furnishings Collection. Cleveland green is a color that I found out about through Bunny Williams. It’s deep and rich. Not brown, not green really, but a blend of the two.

Ben Pentreath

ABALONE

Abalone is another fabulous color. It’s a warm gray, but with a healthy dose of brown and a touch of lavender. It looks fabulous in either dark or bright rooms, but I love it, especially in a darker room. The lavender will come out a little more, but it’s very beautiful, and not at all PURPLE!

CHELSEA GRAY

This is a rich, warm gray that often looks slightly taupe-y when it’s up. It’s like a warm hug and one of my favorite no-fail colors. (source unknown)

VAN DEUSEN BLUE

The image is mine from a job we did in 2008! Van Deusen blue is another of Benjamin Moore’s historical colors. This deep blue has just the right amount of gray and a touch of green. In a darker room, it will go almost navy, but it will look lighter in a brighter room.

DEEP ROYAL

This is a color that I first saw last spring at the High Point Market at the Dunes and Duchess booth. Hands down, the best navy I’ve ever seen. Of course, I saw it in artificial light, but it held it’s own and looked amazing as a backdrop to their colorful art and their line of home accents.

PALE AVOCADO

Above is one of the more colorful mood boards from the Paint and Palette Collection.

My kitchen is also Pale Avocado. This is a wonderful chartreuse with a touch of gold. It’s a terrific choice for someone wanting to try out a yellow-green for the first time. It tends to photograph brighter than it is. It’s quite easy on the eyes. My kitchen came painted this color. But, what’s funny is that my old kitchen was a similar color from Pratt & Lambert.

RACING ORANGE

This is an image I took a few years ago from another booth at the High Point Market in the antique section. The guy gave me the name of another color, but when I got home, it did not look at all like the color, so I went with Racing Orange. It’s not orange and not quite red, but right in between. It looks incredible with antiques and gold, as you can see. Well, I think so!

If you like the idea of a red dining room, please check out this recent post.

And below is the last color, which is in my tiny bathroom.

SHORELINE

Well, a little sliver and then a lot of reflection. Shoreline is the most soothing, soft gray. And, it has the tiniest whisper of blue-green.

This is also a good post about some beautiful pale gray colors that look especially good in bathrooms.

Please pin this graphic to Pinterest for reference.

I hope you enjoyed some of my favorite Benjamin Moore paint colors.

It’s funny, but in the original post, I had a troll who hated the colors. He didn’t say why, and he didn’t say what colors he preferred. Of course, a color taken out of context is just that. It takes the right furnishings to make the room beautiful. That is why I put the paint colors in my collection in palettes and with furnishings. That way, it gives a better context for the colors.

xoxo,