Pewter is a precious metal, an alloy consisting mainly of tin, with antimony, copper, bismuth, and sometimes silver mixed in.
This metal gives name to a rich gray color of paint that can be matched to any room. The tone is bold, dramatic, and sophisticated all at once. It’s often recommended by interior designers as it works well with any decor and creates a pleasing and neutral backdrop.
This guide will show you a range of pewter colors and how to use them in your home. Pay attention to the LRV (light reflective values) of the paint.
Pewter colors vary and must be matched to the quality of light in each room. Pewter also has a range of warmer and cooler undertones that work well in different spaces, set against different colors.
We will take a look at what brands are best for painting your home with Pewter with examples of how each color looks.
Top Options for Painting Your Home with Pewter
- Benjamin Moore: Revere Pewter
- Sherwin-Williams: Pewter Cast
- Benjamin Moore: Light Pewter
- Sherwin-Williams: Pewter Green
- Behr: Pewter Mug
- Glidden: Pewter Gray HDGWN50
- Sherwin-Williams: Warm Pewter
1. Benjamin Moore: Revere Pewter HC-172
This neutral tone balances warm and cool tones and can work with so many decor styles. It’s a top-selling paint color consistently recommended by designers for exactly this reason.
How this color will work in your room depends on the amount of light it receives. LRV values indicate how much light the paint absorbs and how much it reflects. The darkest is 0 and the brightest is 100.
This paint has an LRV of 55.51, putting it almost exactly in the middle of the scale. In darker rooms, the paint's color is reminiscent of taupe, but in brighter ones, its green undertones begin to show through.
Adding this paint to a bright, sunny living room full of hints of pale or olive green, and among white and gray furnishings, creates a sophisticated and inviting look.
If you are a fan of teal, this is also an excellent option as an accent color against this shade. When using the paint in darker rooms, pair it with soft pastel pinks to make the color pop.
This color also looks fantastic in combination with other slightly warm grays such as Sherwin-Williams’s Dorian Gray, or other grays that have the same tone such as Chelsea Gray. You can use them to create stripes or use them to create an accent wall.
When adding a trim color, go for a simple white with either a yellow or gray undertone, but be sure to consider all colors that will add to the room before you lay down the paint.
2. Sherwin-Williams: Pewter Cast
This timeless classic is a cool-toned pewter shade that adds a modern and refined look to the home. I especially love using it for bedroom walls for a fun and fresh feel that can match lots of different styles. This tone works perfectly in a cozy, cluttered room, and equally as well in a sleek, sophisticated one.
As the LRV is on the lower side with this tone at 31, it is best to use it in well-lit rooms. If the room doesn’t have many sun-facing windows, then add plenty of artificial light to really make the most of this color.
Fill rooms painted in Pewter Cast with neat potted plants and contemporary style lamps for an easy way to create elegant style.
This color is versatile and can be paired simply with muted neutral tones of black, white, and other cool grays to add a minimalist feel to a room. However, it also pairs wonderfully with vivid yellow or Fuschia tones.
This pairing adds a modern and funky tone to a room, perfect for adding a flair of style and personality to a bedroom, dining room, or den.
3. Benjamin Moore: Light Pewter
This shade balances cool and warm, veering just slightly towards the warmer side. This is a great shade to choose if you are looking for gray overtones (rather than beige) and a depth of color. If you feel that other pewter tones are too dark, this is a great shade to choose.
This color is an excellent one to use for a living room or dining room if you want to add a refined touch without losing a sense of coziness. It can also create a calming effect in a room and is effective at making spaces look larger.
This pewter-colored paint has a relatively high LRV at 68, so it is a great choice to add lightness and elegance to a room that doesn’t receive much light. Remember though, that a high LRV cannot make up for a complete lack of lighting as it needs some light to reflect the color.
Muted purples tend to match perfectly with this tone. Small touches of pale lilac, deep mauve, or greyish purples will sit wonderfully against Light Pewter.
Adding warmer grays and fresh purples together will give the room a warm but refined look. If you want a bolder look, add accents of royal blue, spruce green, or even black.
4. Sherwin-Williams: Pewter Green
A pewter tone with a more earthy appearance, this mossy, sage-like shade is reminiscent of nature and, as such, pairs wonderfully with nature-inspired shades and materials.
It is a great color to pair with decor made from organic materials, real wood floorings, and plenty of plant life. Pewter Green adds a sense of calm and tranquility to any room.
Dark olives, muted greens, clay reds, taupe, and yellow-beiges are all excellent coordinating colors for pewter green. Combined, they create a palette of organic, bohemian tones. Although Pewter Green is a cooler shade, bringing these colors together will create a warm and cozy feel to a room.
If you prefer cooler tones in the room, accentuate them by using whites with pale green undertones and cool lilacs as your coordinating colors against this green. This charming color combination will make a room appear lively, sophisticated, and spacious.
As this shade is so dark, with an LRV of 12, it is also a great paint to use as an accent tone. Use Pewter Green to paint cabinets in a kitchen or for adding life to a door or doorframe.
Pewter green is also finding a home for itself on the exterior of the house, becoming an ever-more popular choice for brickwork and front doors.
5. Behr: Pewter Mug
This is a shade of pewter that makes a statement. I’d recommend this shade for a cozy den or dining room. Add lighter colors to bring purity and freshness to a room, or darker shades for a bold, dramatic look. Either way, you will create a room that is comfortable and inviting.
With this silvery-gray, it is best to keep muted neutral tones by combining it with black and white colors and adding small splashes of copper or teal to the room too. You can also complement the shade with various tones of blue as the color is a blue-gray tone.
With an LRV of 45 right in the middle of the range, this paint can be added to a room with an adequate amount of light. It will add a fresh brightness to a room without overpowering it.
The darker the room, the more the cool gray of the color will show through and add intensity.
6. Glidden: Pewter Gray HDGWN50
This is a cooler shade than many others on this list and reads as a truer gray. This makes it a fantastic anchor point to add to a living room and a very neutral color to add as a backdrop behind other, more vibrant, colors.
You can light up a room with this color by combining it with lighter greige colors such as Classic Gray or Pale Oak. This design works perfectly in a sleek, designer kitchen, or can be paired with modern art on the walls for a fashionable living room look.
With an LRV of 45.06, this tone sits right in the mid-range and can work well in both brightly lit and darker spaces in the house. If you want a greige color that will act as an anchor and neutral backdrop to whatever style and decor you want in the house, this is the perfect shade to pick.
If you want to add some splashes of color to bring the room to life, keep one color and add various tones to the room. I recommend adding tones of olive greens or copper and brown to give a space for life.
These colors combined will add a more rustic or vintage feel rather than a modern appearance.
7. Sherwin-Williams: Warm Pewter
For many, a gray can seem like a stark and colder choice for a room and one that will need plenty of light and white contrasts to not overpower a room, but a warm pewter gray will have none of these complications, and won’t take over the room in the same way other warmer tones can.
Like many pewter colors, the Sherwin-Williams warm pewter has both cool and warm undertones, but this mid-tone gray does sit definitely on the warmer side of the scale. So, if you haven’t taken to the cooler tones on this list, this could be the right choice for you.
This shade can be kept muted by combining it with warm browns and grays for a sophisticated and understated look. Or match it with more colorful reds and pale orange for a warm and bright decor.
This is another paint with a mid-range LRV at 42, so it can suit a range of light tones. With its warmth, this won’t be a shade that looks overbearingly dark even in a dimmer room, such as a bedroom with low lamps and candles.
In rooms with brighter light, this will add a clean and colorful appearance, perfect for a casual-style bedroom or relaxed dining room.