Gender-Neutral Paint Color Ideas That Kids Will Love!

(Originally published February 2020)

Does anyone else find it challenging to choose colors for kids’ rooms?

Kids have some incredibly bizarre ideas about what looks good, don’t they! If you doubt what I’m saying, just let your 5-year-old pick out their own clothes for school–they may come out dressed like a ninja doctor princess! I made an enormous mistake a while back when I let my daughter select the color of her bedroom when she was 5 years old, and it was…well, impactful. To say the least!

It would have worked better as an accent color!

Anyway, the color was with us for a short time, and it drove us a little crazy. The color wasn’t bad as a small sample, but when it was painted on all four walls, we had a problem with color overload. The saturation and intensity left all of us feeling agitated. Finally, we changed the wall color to something equally bright but a little easier to tolerate:

Anyhow, the whole point is that kids generally have a high tolerance for bright colors.

So let’s talk about some guidelines for people who are thinking about listing their house. If you are selling your home, you may not have to worry about kids’ rooms being bright, but you should consider swapping gender-specific colors with gender-neutral colors. While kids like bold colors, they can’t imagine themselves in a room if it’s too gender-specific, and it’s the wrong gender!

Oops, am I not supposed to talk about that? Oh well, deal with it.

This isn’t going to be a discussion about what gender is or is not.

The truth is, I couldn’t care less about that discussion. Besides, it doesn’t really matter whether you subscribe to traditional gender ideas or not if you’re selling your house. Be practical about this. Most people (including your potential home buyer) usually associate blue with boys and pink with girls. Just ask most school-aged kids if you care to differ with me—they will tell you how it is honestly and unfiltered!

So, if you’re planning on selling your home, you should acknowledge one simple fact. Showing a house with a gender-specific bedroom color can turn off some potential buyers, especially if their kids are the opposite gender. Very few little girls will squeal with excitement when her parents assign her to the blue room with the truck mural on the wall! I’ve been that kid before when we moved to a new home, and it starts you off on bad footing with your new place.

But gender-neutral doesn’t have to be synonymous with boring!

Nobody says that neutralizing the gender of a room needs to be beige, white, or gray and boring, though. Fortunately, many options exist, and you aren’t stuck with having to paint the room yellow like a Peep marshmallow.

Consider this compelling option: teal (or its cousin, turquoise) offers an interesting alternative to gender-specific kids’ room colors. Many of the shades are blue enough for boys to tolerate, yet they offer a fun pink alternative for girls. Teal is also an actual color, which appeals to kids–white, beige, and gray look great in the adult living spaces, but they do not always make a kids’ room shine.

One more thing that makes teal and turquoise good choices is that they coordinate well with other colors. I created a mood board to illustrate some of the color pairings that work well for both teal and turquoise. Notice how the use of neutral furnishings allows the wall color to become the star of the room.

You can see in the mood board above that teal and turquoise coordinate well with many other colors. On the left side are colors that work well as trim or furnishing colors. To the right are suggested accent colors that look amazing, depending on the type of look your kid wants for their room.

If you want a gender-neutral theme in the room, coordinate with beige, white, black, or gray. For a more gender-specific look, pair these wall colors with pink, navy blue, or peach. Teal and turquoise also lend themselves to a nautical decorating theme, since they resemble the color of ocean water. Consider pairing with white or beige (like the color of sand) if you’re decorating with a beach or nautical theme.

Examples of gender-neutralized kids’ rooms

I’m an enthusiastic fan of both teal and turquoise for their versatility. The range colors spans from greenish-blue to bluish-green and can appear as pale pastel and sweet, vibrant and tropical, or muted and serene. A pastel teal looks amazing, sweet and fresh in a nursery for a baby or as a wall color to enlarge a small bedroom. Darker versions of teal or turquoise work well as an accent or as a wall color to contrast with white.

Redecorating around teal or turquoise? Check out the offerings of companies such as Pottery Barn Kids, Pottery Barn Teen, and Serena & Lily. All of these companies feature furnishings and bedding that coordinates extremely well with a water-inspired wall color.

Intense versions of turquoise or teal, such as the Caribbean Cool pictured above, transform a room into an energetic home base for a young child. Rhine River (pictured below) is a muted turquoise that quiets a space and darkens a room for sleep. Teal and turquoise variations also appeal to kids of all ages, because they are not associated with babies or nurseries like the more traditional pastel colors.

Imagine the pre-teen boy having to choose the room that is painted powder pink! I doubt he is thrilled.

Pictured: Benjamin Moore Barely Teal (2048-70), : Benjamin Moore, Rhine River (689);  Benjamin Moore, Caribbean Cool (661).

Turquoise and teal also pair well with other colors. For ideas, see my blog post about what to pair with teal.