35 Neutral Living Room Ideas That Go Beyond the Pale

“Usually, we do like a fair amount of color,” the client of this deliciously neutral Upper East Side apartment told us. “But in New York, it felt right that the palette should be more subdued.” ELLE DECOR A-List design firm Redd Kaihoi embraced the brief with gusto—with its own maximalist inflections. Here, a classic palette of cream and beige gets sun-kissed with complementary materials like bronze, brass, and gilt wood.

If the idea of a blank, beige wall gives you nightmares, opt for an elegant hand-painted mural or scenic wallpaper. By doing so in her own New York apartment, the late design legend Suzanne Rheinstein created a bucolic oasis in the heart of a concrete jungle.

Design experts have long been calling for an expanded definition of neutral, and this California residence, designed by Andre Herrero of the studio Charlap Hyman & Herrero, is an ultra-cool example. Here, warm beiges live side by side with bright white, olive green, and even stainless steel in a scheme that’s easy on the eyes—in more ways than one, judging by that surreal wall sculpture!

Black and white aren’t necessarily shorthand for cozy, but as ELLE DECOR A-List designer Alfredo Paredes proves, the duo makes for the perfect après ski pairing. In this Vermont alpine retreat, he painted the entire living room white, save for the chimney breast, which he covered in a jet black Venetian plaster. Not only does it create a focal point, “It feels more modern and kind of like an exclamation point against the slopes,” Paredes told us.

If you’re like the majority of Americans and adore a modern farmhouse look, go for a neutral variation. Here, in a New York country house, ELLE DECOR A-List designer David Netto artfully mixed antique furniture of various eras with folksy fabrics and silhouettes in complementary tones. Bonus points for the painted ceiling!

If you’ve got a view as stunning as this, Mother Nature’s already done the heavy lifting as far as color is concerned. ELLE DECOR A-List designer Nicole Hollis embraced the surrounding dessert landscape in this epic retreat, which relies on an ultra-pared-back palette of travertine, bleached oak, and limestone.

This serene space, in a New York City home designed by Alyssa Kapito, is a master class in artful all-white layers. Multiple seating areas—in soft whites, of course—create a perfect environment for entertaining, while a plaster chandelier by Eric Schmitt “gives this lovely glow and a sense of architecture,” per Kapito.

As an alternative to flat or glossy paint, give lime wash a try. The trending texture lends a sense of cavelike warmth, or in the case of this Brooklyn apartment by Office of Tangible Space, the feeling of living “in an acorn.”

This refined living room, the handiwork of Augusta Hoffman, shows off the designer’s easy mix of contemporary silhouettes and weightier wood antiques. “We decided to embrace [timber’s] materiality and use it as a contrast to the surrounding spaces,” Hoffman says. “With that, we had to make cognizant choices to make the rest of the space feel bright and open so that the dark wood tone didn’t overpower everything.”

If you crave patterns in your neutral space, go for it! Just make sure they’re in a complementary tone and motif. David Netto protégé Lily Dierkes used a Namay Samay fabric in this Nashville residence. The scalloped wicker ottoman adds texture.

This Sonoma, California, estate might be a new build (the previous house was destroyed by a wildfire), but designer Ken Fulk incorporated plenty of cozy, old-world touches—including the 19th-century stone mantel, which was imported from Italy. Unconventional shapes and outsize silhouettes, as with the Jane Hallworth cocktail table, bring the look back into the present day.

Think outside the box when it comes to the neutral living room of your dreams. Here, in a Manhattan model unit, ELLE DECOR A-List designer Rodney Lawrence specified a sunriselike gradient wallpaper to create a mood that soothes.

To keep your neutral scheme from catching a case of the blahs, play with shapes. Here, in a Brooklyn apartment by Ishka Designs, circular silhouettes are repeated in the rug, cocktail table, lamp, and fireplace. “We love the principle of a circle,” says firm partner Niya Bascom. “There’s no beginning, no middle, no end—only constant growth.”

Don’t be afraid to treat green like a neutral. After all, as Pantone’s Leatrice Eiseman tells us, “Mother Nature uses it ubiquitously in plants and foliage.” The designers at Ashe Leandro seemed to have taken that advice to heart, as shown in this Manhattan living room where the curvaceous olive-green sofa is a seductive inflection point in an otherwise neutral room.