After years dominated by crisp whites and cool grays, American interiors are warming up. But according to new data from Samplize, the change isn’t the return to beige you might expect. Keep reading for a deep, data-based dive into the hues that are redefining U.S. homes.
It’s Becoming Cool To Be Warm
For its first American Paint Color Report, the paint-sampling platform analyzed millions of samples ordered across the United States during the first six months of 2024, 2025 and 2026. Looking at colors from Benjamin Moore, Farrow & Ball, and Sherwin-Williams, the report offers a glimpse at what homeowners are considering before committing to a paint color.
The results speak for themselves: Warm tones now account for 69.4% of everything tested on Samplize, up from 64.3% two years earlier, and their share increased during each year studied. Half of American sample groupings now contain no cool colors at all, compared with 43% at the beginning of the study.
The more interesting finding, however, may be the particular kind of warmth gaining favor. Rather than saturated terra cottas and conventional browns, homeowners are gravitating toward quieter shades that blur familiar color categories.
“The data shows what’s happening, not why,” says Makenna Lutz, Partnerships Lead at Samplize. “What it does show is that the warmth arriving skews low-saturation—greiges, warm greys, soft stones—rather than something bold like terra cotta.”
Redefining The Traditional Brown Family Of Hues
Brown-family shades grew faster than any other color family in the report, appearing in 13.4% of sample groupings, up from 9.2%. Sherwin-Williams’ Warm Stone and Urbane Bronze, Farrow & Ball’s London Clay and Benjamin Moore’s Smokey Taupe were among the colors driving the increase.
And indeed, despite their classification, several of these hues read less like traditional browns than weathered stones, taupes or warm grays. That ambiguity makes them particularly adaptable to layered interiors. A warm neutral wall can recede behind expressive furniture, artwork, and pattern just as easily as it can become part of a quieter composition built around natural materials or subtle variations in texture.
“Color isn’t the only tool a designer uses—material, pattern and texture all get layered in too,” Lutz says. “A warm neutral can just as easily be the backdrop for bold pattern or a pop of color, or the foundation for a quieter layering of texture, richness and dimension.”
Even gray, which fell from 35.9% to 30.9% of sample groupings over the period studied, may not be disappearing as much as changing temperature. Some of the fastest-rising greiges are classified by manufacturers as neutrals or browns despite visually occupying the territory between cool gray and warm beige.
“Gray never really leaves the palette,” Lutz says. “It just shifts along the cool-to-warm and saturation range to match the moment.”
Green And Deep Tones Are Having A Moment Too
Green offers a different story. After a sharp rise, it held at a higher level and now appears in 34.6% of American sample groupings. The shades gaining traction range from Benjamin Moore’s Saybrook Sage and Sherwin-Williams’ Clary Sage to deeper colors such as Farrow & Ball’s Green Smoke and Sherwin-Williams’ Retreat.
Rather than another fleeting color cycle, that stability suggests green may be becoming a more permanent part of the residential palette. Lutz points to its long association with nature and biophilic design as one possible explanation.
Deep color is also part of the story. Warm tones grew faster than cool ones at every depth in the report, with deep warm shades growing roughly six times faster than deep cool shades. Benjamin Moore’s Classic Burgundy, one of the darkest colors studied, grew alongside much paler blush and plaster tones.
The result is less a prescribed palette than a recalibration. Warmth can arrive through greige walls and weathered wood, certainly, but also through burgundy, bronze, sage, mixed metals and richly textured textiles. For designers, that makes the current movement less about embracing a new “it” color than reconsidering the temperature of the room as a whole.
