By Katherine Roth

Associated Press

When it comes to painting rooms, gray is red-hot.

Benjamin Moore carries over 150 shades of gray, and Sherwin-Williams says that of their top 50 colors for interiors, 30 are grays.

“The trend toward gray started in Scandinavia, became big in the U.S. around six years ago, and is still on the rise,” says Sue Wadden, director of color marketing at Sherwin-Williams.

Andrea Magno of Benjamin Moore says, “Gray is not going anywhere, and is still growing in popularity. It updates things instantly, and it’s evolving over time. And we’re seeing more gray cabinetry and more trim in gray now.”

Just 15 years ago, she says, “if you told someone you were going to paint your room gray, they would groan and say, ‘How depressing.’ Before about 2010, it was all about warm Tuscan colors. Since then, it’s really about cool modern grays, and not just for paint colors. Stone, marble, tile and wood have also gone a lot cooler.”

But picking the correct shade of gray can be tricky.

“It’s crucial to pay attention to the undertones, and also how the light reacts to it,” Magno says. “Gray is a very sneaky color.”

Grays have undertones of blue, purple or green, and you’ll want to make sure the undertones are compatible with surrounding tile, furnishings and fabrics, designers say.

For a real “smack-in-the-middle gray,” Wadden suggests her company’s Repose Gray.

“For walls surrounding pink tile in a bathroom, I’d go with Repose Gray, which goes great with pink and creates a neutral background,” she says.

Amazing Gray has a greener undertone, while Passive is cooler with more blue.

“We typically try to steer clients away from purple undertones. Usually, we stick to true warms and true cools, and the middle ground, often referred to as French grays. They are pretty true grays,” says Cate Dunning, who, with Lathem Gordon, runs the Atlanta-based GordonDunning Interior Design.

In addition to undertones, there’s a big difference between cool and warm grays, with the former better suited to modern interiors.