A true light gray is hard to find, but Benjamin Moore Gray Owl gives just that…most of the time. Sometimes silver, sometimes a chameleon, but always fabulous! There’s a reason that Gray Owl has been a favorite for years.
Here we will talk about all of Gray Owl’s undertones, pair it with some coordinating colors, see it in real homes, and get some dupes!
What Color is Benjamin Moore Gray Owl?
Gray Owl is a very light silvery gray. Most often it reads like a true gray, but paired with warmer colors it may look slightly green or blue. I would describe it as a mist color: A light gray with cool, watery undertones.
Benjamin Moore describes Gray Owl as:
“A use-anywhere light gray with a cool, crisp cast.” – benajminmoore.com
Which for once, is pretty accurate.
Gray Owl LRV
The LRV of Gray Owl is 64.51. This puts it just outside of off-white territory, where LRVs are typically 70+. However, because this color is so neutral, I do find that it sometimes reads like an off-white.
Is Gray Owl Warm or Cool?
Gray Owl is a bit of an anomaly. On paper it appears to be a bit warm, but in real life it usually looks cool.
The Behr color Dolphin Fin is notorious for the same thing.
What Are the Undertones of Benjamin Moore Gray Owl
Gray Owl typically looks totally neutral and gray. If it does have an undertone, it is most often slightly green. It can also look a little blue, particularly when paired with very creamy whites that have a more orange-beige undertone.
Do you see how the swatches look different based on the background color?
When paired with blues or cool greens, suddenly Gray Owl can show a warmer greigey undertone. I will try to show all of the faces of Gray Owl when we get to real homes, but in the meantime I have tried to represent them accurately here:
This is a pretty good example because the shift in undertone is there, but it is subtle. Gray Owl is most well known for that touch of green undertone, but having seen it in a wide variety of rooms, I almost feel like the green has been overstated.
You can decide for yourself in just a moment when we get to real homes!
The Gray Owl Color Strip from Benjamin Moore
The Gray Owl color strip starts out silver and ends surprisingly chocolatey:
I would say that Sea Haze and Desert Twilight are reasonably close to being darker shades of Gray Owl, but with stronger undertones. Both colors are less likely than Gray Owl to read like true plain grays.
Durango is the last color on this strip to truly have a green undertone. Otter Brown and Char Brown may have an olivey undertone on occasion, but they are very brown forward. (Similar to Sherwin Williams Urbane Bronze.)
Gray Owl in a Color Palette
Here are some fresh coordinating colors that I think work well with Gray Owl:
Coordinating White Paint Color for Hidden Gem
Sherwin Williams Ibis White doubles as both a coordinating white, and a complementary color for Gray Owl, thanks to it’s warm, pinky-red undertone.
In real life, Ibis White does typically read like a true clean white.
Try Hidden Gem with Benjamin Moore Misted Green
Misted Green is a nice mid-toned sage by Benjamin Moore that works very nicely with the undertones in Gray Owl:
You should know that the coolness of Misted Green is more likely to emphasize the warmth in Gray Owl. It is less likely to look blue or especially cool against a stronger color like Misted Green.
Neutral Paint Color to Use with Hidden Gem
Revere Pewter is probably Benjamin Moore’s most popular neutral paint color of all time. It happens to look very nice with Gray Owl, and helps to emphasize its cool undertones.
Pair Gray Owl with Benjamin Moore Cheating Heart
Cheating Heart is a deep charcoal blue by Benjamin Moore that is most likely to emphasize the warm or green undertones in Gray Owl:
I would not expect Gray Owl to look particularly silvery or blue next to Cheating Heart, because it has quite a strong cool undertone. Here it is with Benjamin Moore Natural Cream (a true light greige) on perimeter cabinets:
If you like this color, you will also like Sherwin Williams Peppercorn or Behr Cracked Pepper.
Benjamin Moore Gray Owl for Your Home’s Interior
Now let’s see some Gray Owl in action!
Gray Owl in the Living Room
Here is a look at Gray Owl where it looks like a true light gray:
I would say that Gray Owl most often looks like this: Silvery gray with almost no undertones.
Here is another look where Gray Owl is a little cooler:
It shouldn’t be a surprise that Gray Owl looks its coolest and most blue against this bright mustard chair.
Gray Owl reminds me a lot of my favorite light gray: Benjamin Moore Shoreline.
I have personally used Shoreline in my own home and found that your eye could be tricked into almost seeing it as white until you noticed the trim and ceiling. I would expect the same from Gray Owl. It’s not technically light enough to look white, but it is so very neutral!
In the case of Gray Owl, it does have a more green undertone than Shoreline. We can see that undertone at play here:
Gray Owl is the color on the dresser. You can see that it has an almost minty undertone here. Let’s take another look in lower lighting:
This photo is a good example of Gray Owl. It’s definitely gray, but it has an undertone that is hard to put your finger on.
Here is another picture, where this time you can see Gray Owl close up in bright natural light, and further down the hallway in lower light:
Benjamin Moore Gray Owl in the Bathroom
Here in this bathroom Gray Owl looks very light and true gray on the wall, but in the reflection you can see a more green undertone:
Now in this case the color could definitely be blamed on the mirror, but it’s not inaccurate, so I’m allowing it.
Unfortunately, I just don’t have any great examples of Gray Owl’s more beigey undertone, so I will have to prove its existence using a similar color!
Allow me to introduce Benjamin Moore Moonshine:
Moonshine is lighter and more green than Gray Owl, but even so, here we see it with a very creamy beige undertone:
This is about how you can expect Gray Owl to look at its absolute warmest. Moonshine has been made to look very warm in comparison to the darker and cooler Sherwin Williams Acacia Haze.
This is Moonshine looking more typical, and closer to Gray Owl:
Using Gray Owl in a Laundry Room
Here is Gray Owl looking somewhere in between true gray, soft green, and greige:
This is another time where the undertone is hard to put your finger on. With all of the White Dove in the room, Gray Owl does look a little darker than normal.
Benjamin Moore Gray Owl in Real Kitchens
The kitchen is a great place to use Gray Owl because it is light, bright, and neutral, but it’s also a hard to place to find examples for some reason!
Here is a kitchen with Gray Owl on the walls, with very dark charcoal blue cabinets.
This picture is pretty old so the quality is terrible. Here is an upscaled version, that looks a little less real, but the color is still accurate:
In this room you can really see how the color shifts from warm gray in the near part of the photo, to cool gray over in the living room.
I’m not sure on the cabinet color here, but it looks similar to Cheating Heart or Sherwin Williams Cyberspace.
Gray Owl on Kitchen Cabinets
Gray Owl despite being a fairly popular color, is not a popular choice for kitchen cabinets, so we will have to see some other colors where they look like Gray Owl.
First up we have Wales Gray on upper cabinets with Benjamin Moore Atmospheric on the lowers:
Wales Gray is actually darker and more blue than Gray Owl, but it looks very light and warm here, and quite like Gray Owl!
When Gray Owl looks it’s coolest, it will look more like this on kitchen cabinets:
This is actually Benjamin Moore Silver Satin, but it looks very close to Gray Owl in this kitchen. The white cabinets are Benjamin Moore White Dove.
Next we see Benjamin Moore Coventry Gray posing as Gray Owl. In this case I do think you should try to imagine the color just a hair lighter:
In this first photo the color looks warmer, and in the next one we can see it looking cooler:
In both cases I do think the color is pretty accurate to Gray Owl.
Benjamin Moore Gray Owl for your Home’s Exterior
Outside is the one area where you can expect Gray Owl to typically lean to its lightest and warmest. Your yard almost always has some greenery, so the color tends to not look green, or particularly cool, in comparison.
Here is a Gray Owl exterior with Benjamin Moor Amherst Gray on the trim:
In this first picture we see Gray Owl looking as light and close to white as it gets! Here is one more where it also looks very light:
You can see how the color could be a light cool gray, but in the absence of true white, your brain can also see it as white.
Here is a look at the color where it looks a little bit darker, but also warmer:
Here Gray Owl looks the most true gray:
And finally a look at the whole thing:
Gray Owl is a nice safe choice for an exterior, but I’m not sure that it’s doing anything exciting. If you have an HOA to please, it’s probably a solid option. I slightly prefer the similar color Sherwin Williams Ethereal White.
Benjamin Moore Gray Owl vs Classic Gray
I won’t go into the million and one colors that are similar to Gray Owl, but I do want to quickly show the commonly compared Benjamin Moore Classic Gray.
Despite its name, Classic Gray more often reads like a creamy neutral off white than gray. It is technically an off white, with an LRV of 74.
Classic Gray rarely looks cool, unlike Gray Owl, and it never has a green undertone. Both are light gray paint colors that can have warm undertones, but that’s about it for similarities.
Dupes for Gray Owl from Other Brands
Can’t get to Benjamin Moore? Here are the very best color match alternatives from each of the major paint brands:
Gray Owl in Sherwin Williams
From Sherwin Williams the best color match for Gray Owl is their shade Silverpointe.
Silverpointe is a tiny bit darker, a little bit more gray, and a hair cooler than Gray Owl. Each difference is very minor, but Silverpointe is likely to have a green undertone a little more often than Gray Owl.
Otherwise these colors do look very much the same, and they run the same range of undertones.
Valspar Equivalent for Gray Owl
The closest dupe for Gray Owl from Valspar is the color Pan’s Flute.
Pan’s Flute is a tiny bit lighter than Gray Owl, and that is the only major difference. In real life these colors are virtually identical.
Behr (Home Depot) Alternative for Gray Owl
Over at Home Depot, the best dupe for Gray Owl is the Behr color Silver Feather.
Silver Feather is just a bit lighter and cooler than Gray Owl. It does still have the same range of undertones, but because it is lighter it is a little more likely to read off-white.
It also has a green undertone a little more often than Gray Owl, but it is still capable of reading like a true plain gray.
Here is another look at each of these dupes:
Thank you so much for reading to the end of this post! That really helps my blog. I hope this helped you decide if Gray Owl (or one of its dupes!) is the perfect one for you.
Not sure? Not a problem! Here are a few more colors that you might like:
