What Are ‘Millennial Grey’ Homes and Why Are They Making Millennials Cringe?

“OH, LOOK, the kitchen floors are grey now,” I said, juggling boxes as I stepped inside my newly rented apartment. “Nice!”

When I’d first toured the 1940s townhouse in Queens, N.Y., that floor was tiled in ageing checkerboard squares of black and icky-cream. The promise to replace them had thrilled me, but the colour came as a surprise. Then I noticed the kitchen walls were now a seemingly identical grey. A few months later, when my landlord needed to replace the mid-century-pink bathroom floors, I was less enthused. “Oh, look, the bathroom floors are grey now,” I said. “Ugh.”

This decor style—or lack thereof—that I and so many of my millennial peers have ended up with has inspired the mocking phrase millennial grey. “There’s a millennial grey-looking restroom inside the Mexican restaurant,” TikToker @chloeisag sang in February in a viral video with 3.5 million views. The video contrasts the cheery, piñata-filled decor in a restaurant’s seating area with the clean-yet-bleak bathroom in the back. Grey floors. Grey walls. Grey artwork. A fake plant. “It’s giving ‘airport,’” she sings. “It’s giving ‘live, laugh, love.’ It’s giving ‘corporate.’”

As the phrase circulates online, many millennials are realising, to their chagrin, that it all-too-accurately describes their own homes. “So I just heard the phrase ‘millennial gray’ for the first time,” said horrified TikTok user @victoria.thatsit in another video. “Let me show you guys my house. My bathroom: grey. My floor: grey. My counters: grey…Our chairs: some type of grey. Our dog beds: grey. Our walls are grey. This last one really gets me: Our dogs are grey!”

That video has 5.6 million views. “It’s a thing?” one TikTok commenter said of ‘millennial grey.’ “Cause it’s true lol. Everything I own is grey and I’m buying more grey.” Another pinpoints the problem: Grey harmonises effortlessly with…more grey. It “will go with anything…including everything we’ve bought that’s already grey that we bought to go with everything.” A third writes, “I think we all had intentions of adding pops of color but we have commitment problems.”

Boomers and GenXers have ridiculed millennials for decades, but punches from below, from Gen Z and TikTok and the very internet millennials grew up on, are uniquely gutting. And this one particularly hurts because it’s true. I accept no blame for my walls and my floors—as a renter, I don’t make the rules; my (millennial-aged) landlords do. But you know what else is gray? My sofa. My bedding. I chose those. Me. I’m only 29, but as soon as the “millennial gray” snipe surfaced online, I knew the phrase would haunt me for the rest of my decorating years.

How did my generation, known not too long ago for a penchant for pastels, let ourselves slip into a haze of gray? It isn’t necessarily the result of conscious design choices, says Nicko Elliott, 42, co-founder of Civilian architectural and interior design studio in Brooklyn, N.Y. As he explained, house flippers and property managers tend to like inexpensive furnishings in safe, neutral, durable colors, which means many millennial renters and first-time homeowners signed a dotted line on a space that already had gray in its bones: the floors, the cabinets, the counters, the walls. And even when it came time to renovate, many millennials “have been really focused on…having a blank slate for the next person,” said Jen Cook, 39, a Vancouver-based designer and co-founder of Otto Studio, which sells removable, renter-friendly wallpaper.

And the “take it or leave it” gray of choice is often particularly numbing and middle-of-the-road. “Sensible property managers and landlords might say, ‘go for middle grays,’” said Mr. Elliott. “‘If it’s too light it’s going to show dirt. If it’s too dark it’s going to show dirt.’ Everything’s going to push you toward a middle tone.”

Another factor: Impatient millennials want things fast. When it comes to major design purchases like sofas from mass-market outlets, neutral colors like gray are often what’s in stock, no ordering required, said Ksenia Kagner, 37, the other co-founder of Civilian in Brooklyn. “For colored sofas, these days you have to wait 12 to 18 weeks.” For millennials accustomed to two-day shipping, that kind of wait isn’t an option.

Then, as Ms. Cook put it, there’s the fact that “some folks don’t feel comfortable matching [colors]. They’re worried about getting tired of it, so if people are feeling busy and stressed and tapped out, a gray neutral palette feels much more doable.”

The look was once actually a coveted, luxe trend. “In the late ‘90s, when we were coming out of peach-beige-mania, there was more of a high-end design movement about gray and dark woods,” said Mr. Elliott. That trickled down into mass-market decor options. Now, as the design pendulum swings back around to beiges, a gray palette can seem dated, and millennials are realizing to their dismay that they’ve been living life in colorless spaces for the past several years.

Of course, to some, a simple gray palette might seem like a relaxing choice after a stressful day at work. “I think gray just feels very comfortable,” said Nathaniel Dressler, 24, who is enlisted in the U.S. Air Force and recently bought and redecorated a home with mostly gray furnishings in Panama City, Fla. When he moved in, the walls were green and blue and, to him, seemed “really busy.” After he muted the look by painting it gray, “it felt very peaceful and calming.” Like me, he first encountered the phrase “millennial gray” on TikTok and found it amusing (though, by most definitions, he is technically a member of Gen Z). “We had just picked out the colors for our walls and floors and cabinets, and our furniture was already [grey]…Then when I saw it on TikTok, I was like, ‘Oh, this is definitely what they’re talking about.’”

Mr. Dressler said he notices lots of neutral colour choices among his peers, a contrast to the home he grew up in with its yellow and red accent walls. “Every generation wants to move against whatever their parents had as decor,” says Ms. Cook. “For our parents, it was the Tuscan kitchens, for their parents, maybe it was pastels in the ’50s.” At least one TikToker agrees: “As a millennial with a lot of gray walls…I grew up at a time when it was appropriate for everyone to have this faux Tuscan kitchen,” @corndogbicep said in a video. “So what do millennials do with such traumatizing life circumstances? Well, we all decided to have a mental health crisis simultaneously. This is not farmhouse gray; this is asylum gray. We’re living in peace now.”

So what’s on deck for the next generation of home decor enthusiasts? The bolder, the better, said Ms. Cook. “Gen Z is more open…to the idea that your home can be a reflection of your personality, and they’re really going for the big, saturated colors,” she said, noting the difference in shopping habits she’s observed among buyers of her removable wallpaper. “We do have a lot of neutral and softer color palettes—and nobody’s buying it,” she said of Gen Z tastes. “Everyone’s getting the hot pink, the bright blue. It’s kind of wild.”

ME GRAY? NO WAY

Realized you’re living in a dull daze at home? How to break the cycle.

Think of color as an investment in your happiness. “Our homes impact our mental health so much,” says Ms. Cook. “Ask yourself: Am I inspired by warm, citrusy colors? Am I into pastels? Do I want to go big and bold with some neon touches?”
If you want to work with the gray you’ve already got:Pull in complementary colors throughout your space. Try sophisticated versions of primary colors, like oxblood, a deep yellow or cobalt blue. “These colors would help bring electricity and contrast to a dull gray space,” Mr. Elliott said.
Finally, if you’re dead-set on gray walls, at least choose the right one. Wickham Gray by Benjamin Moore is a go-to gray paint that Ms. Kagner and Mr. Elliott have used in multiple projects. “It’s beautiful,” he said. “There’s a little bit of green in it, a little bit of blue in it, and there’s a richness that will change over time. It absorbs colors, it reflects light throughout the day, and it has different moods.”

The idea of wallpaper elicits so much apprehension in homeowners, New York designer Francis Toumbakaris purposely uses the term “wallcovering” when speaking to clients about it. Yet decorating websites and media accounts teem with instances of the stuff. “It transforms a room and gives it personality,” said Casey Keasler, founder of design studio Casework, in Portland, Ore.

So what keeps folks from hanging the gorgeous material, and how do homeowners get over these wallpaper willies? Here, some case studies of conversions.

Hangup: It’s too pricey.

Budget concerns can hamstring homeowners. Home-services company Angi estimates that wallpaper can cost as much as $12 a square foot for labor and materials, while painting tops out at $6. “If the wall surface needs work beforehand, prices go up,” said Bethany Adams, an interior designer in Louisville, Ky. And Keasler notes that paper can cost as much as $400 a roll.

Antidote: Baby steps

New York designer Tara McCauley says homeowners can get more hang for their buck by using paper strategically. In an apartment in Brooklyn whose homeowners sweated the bottom line, she coated only the hallway with a dark-blue pattern inspired by Portuguese tiles. “It added so much impact,” McCauley said of the modest use. The designer adds that another way to save money is by hanging what she calls the gateway drug to wallpaper: patternless grass cloth. With no need to align a motif, the material goes up quickly and costs less to install, she says, “but it adds visual depth in a way plain paint never could.”

Hangup: I’ll get sick of it

A fear of commitment stops many would-be wall paperers, who worry about having a change of heart later. Erik Perez, a design publicist with his own firm in Los Angeles, campaigned hard for what he thought was the perfect old-Hollywood look for his and his husband’s dining room—a maximalist, leafy green wallpaper made famous by the mid-20th-century decoration of the Beverly Hills Hotel. His husband, Paul Hardoin, a voice-over actor, resisted. “Is it going to go out of style? Will I tire of it? Will it affect resale value?” he worried.

Erik Perez, right, and his husband, Paul Hardoin, in their Los Angeles dining room, clad in CW Stockwell’s Martinique paper. Photo: Julie Goldstone for WSJ

Antidote: Low-use spaces

Infrequently used rooms can carry a bold choice long-term. Of the Brooklyn hallway she wrapped in blue, McCauley noted, “It’s a pass-through, so you don’t get overwhelmed by a bold pattern.” Ditto powder and dining rooms, like that of Perez, who said, “We only used that room when we were entertaining and it was too cold to be outside.”

It took three years, but Hardoin caved when the banana-leaf pattern became available in blue. “I thought it looked cool,” Hardoin said. He took the leap, knowing his sister Annette Moran (a wallpaper enthusiast) would be their DIY installer. “Now it’s the happiest room in the house,” he said.

Hangup: It’s dated

When Sarah and Nate Simon bought a historic home in Louisville, Ky., the walls sported oppressively dark patterns, including big, repeating medallions set in a grid. Sarah recalls thinking, “ ‘Not this! What’s the opposite of this?’ In my mind that would be paint.” Even for folks who haven’t pulled down awful examples, “the word ‘wallpaper’ can take them back to flowery patterns of the ’50s and ’60s that feel very dated,” said Toumbakaris.

Antidote: Modernity

“Wallpaper does not mean what it used to. It can be meandering, abstract, ombre or sisal,” said Simon’s interior designer, Bethany Adams. She suggested a sophisticated Chinoiserie that New York designer Miles Redd, in a collaboration with Schumacher, updated with an aqua colorway. Adams explains that like most Chinoiseries, this pattern doesn’t repeat for more than 8 feet. “You get a peripatetic design that keeps the eye engaged,” she said. “It’s looser.” Said Simon of her dining room today, “It’s a complete transformation, like art on my walls.”

Stereotypes of fusty florals and pitiless patterns fall away when designers present homeowners with contemporary picks. Still, sometimes the conversion takes time. One of Keasler’s clients, gun-shy after removing old paper, came back a year later, ready. “We chose a clean classic style that was graphic and minimal for a modern edge in the bathroom,” said the designer.