If you’ve been following trends in hardwood flooring and interior design, you’ve noticed the trend towards greige. A few years ago, gray entered the scene as the hot new color. It comes in a wide range of shades that can be adapted to many different design schemes. Then, many people tempered that gray with tones of beige or natural brown; this was called greige. Greige was the hottest color a few year sago. Several years later, greige seems to remain one of the most popular colors. Greige has shown no signs of slowing down. There are a few reasons why.

Tuning the Mixture

One of the reasons greige is so popular is that you can tune the mixture to your liking. If you’re staining your hardwood floor or hiring a professional to stain it, they might have a greige stain already mixed. However, you should probably insist on mixing it yourself. That’s a strength of greige. It’s typically made of gray and brown in different proportions. If you want something cool and understated, you might chose 75% gray and 25% brown to make your greige. If you want something warmer, you might choose 50% gray and 50% brown. Finally, if you want a subtle graying that might lend itself to a rustic look, 25% gray and 75% brown could be a good choice.

As you can see from these broad proportions, there are three different looks to greige based only on the look you’re seeking to achieve. If you want to achieve a different look or to match something else in your home, you could tune your greige slightly differently.

Other Tones

If you are choosing some tones of greige, you shouldn’t limit yourself to just mixtures of gray and brown. You could customize your greige with other tones. For example, you might choose a gray stain as your base, but mix it with a cherry stain. That stain will lend a much warmer, reddish tone to your greige. Alternately, you could choose a honey colored stain if you wanted to add some brightness.

You also don’t have to mix the stains together before you apply them. You can layer your stains the same way you layer paint when painting a wall. Using gray as a base will create subtle gray tones for whatever top coat you use. Using beige as the base will add warmth to the gray. As you can see, there are dozens of different combinations that can make greige. The diversity makes it a long-lasting trend.