Short answer
There is no measured evidence either way. No published dataset tracks the colour of real rooms, paint sales by colour family or furniture colour over time, so the widely shared story of the 'grey decade' in interiors rests on design-press commentary, trend announcements and selected photographs. It may well be true for some markets and years, but it has not been measured.
The case for neutral interiors is made from several kinds of material: magazine and social-media images of white and grey rooms, the popularity of 'greige' and grey paint colours in the 2010s, paint companies' colour-of-the-year choices, estate-agent advice to repaint in neutrals before selling, and before-and-after photo essays that pair a colourful mid-century room with a grey modern one. Articles about the Science Museum Group's object study often extend its finding to interiors by illustration. Each of these shows that neutral interiors were visible and recommended. None of them measures what share of homes were actually painted or furnished in neutral colours, or how that changed.
Three sources could answer the question. Paint sales by colour family, which the large paint makers and retailers collect but do not publish in that form. A consistent sample of photographs of real rooms over time — property-listing photos are the obvious candidate, though they over-represent homes staged for sale, which are deliberately neutralised. Or repeated household surveys asking about wall and furniture colour. Colourwise found no published study using any of these to track interior colour over time. Trend announcements are forecasts or marketing, not observations, and are covered in the colour trends section rather than here.
Homes change colour slowly and unevenly: most rooms are repainted every several years, and furniture and flooring last longer still. A fashion visible in new-build show homes and magazines may take a decade to reach existing housing, if it does at all. Neutral walls are also a long-standing default in rented and for-sale property, which make up a large share of homes in many countries, so a high neutral share need not be new. And perception is shaped by photographs: interiors are photographed in daylight with white balance set to make walls look clean and white, which exaggerates how neutral they are in person.
Two things can be said with evidence. Paint makers expanded their ranges of greys, off-whites and warm neutrals in the 2010s, and those colours featured heavily in their marketing — a supply-side fact that does not measure uptake. And design media has since named counter-trends, most visibly 'dopamine decor', a label for rooms using several saturated colours that Livingetc says it first reported in 2022. That too is coverage, not measurement. Anyone who needs to know what colours people actually use at home should treat both the grey decade and its colourful reversal as hypotheses.
| Possible evidence | Would show | Published? | Main bias |
|---|---|---|---|
| Paint sales by colour family | What people actually bought | No | Includes trade and new-build work |
| Property-listing photographs over time | Colours of real rooms | No systematic study found | Homes staged for sale are neutralised |
| Household surveys of wall and furniture colour | Self-reported colours in use | No repeated survey found | Recall and naming of colours |
| Design-press images and trend announcements | What was promoted | Yes, abundantly | Selected to illustrate a story |
| Museum collections of domestic objects | Colour of collected objects | Yes, for objects (Science Museum Group) | Curated, non-random |
Each statement is labelled by kind — established fact, a standard’s requirement, observed market data, a convention, or Colourwise’s own interpretation or analysis — with the strength of the evidence behind it.
Colourwise interpretationLimited evidence
Colourwise found no published dataset that measures the colour of home interiors, paint sales by colour family or furniture colour over time.
Based on: Search of design press, museum, academic and industry sources for a measured interior-colour series; the only related quantitative study (Science Museum Group) covers museum objects, not rooms.
Caveat: An absence of published data; unpublished industry data may exist.
FactLimited evidence
Livingetc describes 'dopamine decor' — interiors using several bright colours in graphic blocks — as a trend it first reported in 2022 and still treated as current in 2025.
Caveat: Evidence that the label is used in design media, not of how many homes adopted it.
Source: Dopamine decor (feature on the colour-maximalist interiors trend)
FactModerate evidence
Popular articles about the world becoming less colourful often extend the Science Museum Group object study to interiors by illustration rather than by measurement.
Source: Is the World Less Colorful? Highlighting the Color Evolution of Objects and Spaces; Colour & Shape: Using Computer Vision to Explore the Science Museum Group Collection
Reviewed 29 September 2026. Colourwise summarises its sources in its own words and does not reproduce standards text or proprietary colour data. Spotted an error? Tell us.