Color Combinations
Colors that go with red brick for your walls
Warm neutrals such as off-white and greige sit quietly next to red brick, and tan does too. Mid-depth blue and muted green push against it on purpose. Near-black works as well, as long as the room gets enough light.
Undertone decides most of it. The paint has to match whatever orange, brown, pink or burgundy cast the brick carries, then survive the room’s light.
Brick color gets set in the kiln. A 2012 study by Karaman and colleagues fired clay bricks from 700 to 1050 degrees C in 25-degree steps and found that reddening drove the color change above 975 degrees C.
Hue also shifted with firing temperature in that study, so a paint that suits one brick wall misses on another with a different undertone.
Wood, floors and other fixed surfaces are one part of our chart of which colors go together, which also covers walls, textiles and rooms.
Wood, floors and other fixed surfaces are one part of our color scheme guide for interiors, which also covers walls, textiles and rooms.
How do you read the undertone of a red brick wall?
Name the dominant tone in daylight (orange, brown, pink or burgundy), then check the mortar color. Paint sits beside both, so those two reads decide every choice that follows.
Brick undertone types
According to University of Surrey doctoral research on brick colour, iron oxide does most of the coloring in fired brick clay, and firing temperature changes how that iron shows.
The Institut fuer Ziegelforschung Essen adds that reduction firing pushes a red body toward a blackish gray-blue, and that lighting and the viewer’s perception shape the color we read. Expect several tones in one wall, then pick the dominant one.
Guides to interior brick describe that dominant tone in slightly different ways. The Color Concierge (2024) calls it red-orange or burgundy-orange. Kylie M Interiors goes with pink or salmon, and Houzz with brown-red.
Check the wall at midday and again under lamp light. The tone you name at both times is the one to match.
Mortar color and paint pairing
Mortar is the second color on the wall.
Kylie M Interiors says some mortars lean warm and tan, and tan paint softens how intense the brick looks. The same guide finds Revere Pewter often sits well with the mortar while still lifting the red.
The logic is simple. Pick up the undertones already in the brick and choose neutrals that carry them, on the joints as much as on the brick face.
For layout and styling ideas around the wall itself, a roundup of brick and stone wall ideas covers the material side.
Which paint undertone works with warm, cool or neutral brick?
Warm brick takes warm, muted paint, while pink-leaning or cool brick takes paint with a trace of its own undertone. Matching undertone is the safer default, and contrast works only when the paint is clearly different and clearly deliberate.
| Brick tone | Paint undertone that works | Watch for |
|---|---|---|
| Orange or brown-red | Warm, muted off-white, greige or tan | Stark cool white |
| Dark red or burgundy | Warm gray or taupe with a violet undertone | Drift toward gray as finishes and light change |
| Pink or faded red | White with a trace of red | Pure white that reads candy-like |
| Cool, blue-leaning brick | Arctic or cloud white, barely any gray | Too much gray in the white |
The first row draws on The Color Concierge (2024) and CertaPro (2022), the second on Kylie M Interiors, and the last two on Hunker.
Much of the undertone advice online comes from guides to exterior paint colors for brick homes. The matching logic carries indoors, but the cautions need a second look.
Gambrick shows arctic white and light gray beside interior red brick, and rates gray among the best matches. CertaPro (2022) tells homeowners to avoid stark cool whites, though, and The Color Concierge (2024) wants whites warm and muted.
The sources disagree because they describe different settings. The warnings cover exterior siding and trim, while Gambrick’s examples are interior walls.
Creamy whites show up as the safe pick in the exterior sources, and nothing in Gambrick’s interior examples contradicts that.
Gambrick treats contrast in interior design as the balancing tool, so the wall should differ from the brick in depth or temperature and not sit one shade away. Competing wall colors take attention from the brick.
Color-wheel logic offers other routes beside matching. Analogous schemes stay with warm neighbors of red-orange, and complementary schemes move to green.
Best neutral and warm paint colors for a red brick wall
Warm off-white, greige or warm gray, and tan are the safest wall colors against red brick. They pick up the clay undertone and leave the brick as the focal point.
Manufacturer color pages, checked in October 2026, give the LRV for the neutrals named below.
- Alabaster (Sherwin-Williams SW 7008) comes in at LRV 82
- White Dove (Benjamin Moore OC-17) is slightly brighter at LRV 83.16
- Revere Pewter (Benjamin Moore HC-172) sits at LRV 55.05
Whites and off-whites
Choose a white with warmth in it.
Kylie M Interiors describes Alabaster as a soft, creamy white, and Benjamin Moore calls White Dove a clean, classic white. They sit about one LRV point apart, so brightness does not separate them.
Alabaster is creamier, which puts it closer to the brick’s warmth. White Dove has a crisper edge against the red.
Undertone settles the choice, and only a sample held next to the brick shows it.
Greige, gray and taupe
Revere Pewter is a mid-depth warm taupe-gray, and Kylie M Interiors pairs it with the mortar. Agreeable Gray is popular, but The Color Concierge reports green and violet undertones that turn grim in low or cool light. Gambrick, on the other hand, likes light gray on a brick accent wall for the freshness and contrast.
Darker red brick, in Kylie M Interiors’ view, suits warm grays and taupes with a violet undertone.
Agreeable Gray is the cautionary case. A color that works in a bright living room can fail on a north wall next to the same brick.
Tan and terracotta
Tan softens brick when the mortar leans tan, per Kylie M Interiors.
Terracotta needs restraint. Roomdsign advises a light or pale version so the wall does not overpower the brick, and says apricot, with its strong orange hues, blends with the red tones of the brick.
Pale terracotta, apricot and tan all come from the same earthy family, and an earthy color palette for interiors shows what else belongs beside them.
Do blue, green and dark colors work with red brick?
Yes, when the blue is mid-depth, the green is muted and the dark paint gets enough light. Pale blue and bright, saturated green are where these pairings fail.
Blue
Benjamin Moore lists Hale Navy HC-154 at LRV 8.36 (color page, October 2026), which makes it a very deep navy.
The sources split on how deep a blue should go. Brick and Batten praises the deep, grayish Westcott Navy for the contrast it gives brick. CertaPro (2022) rates a medium blue as stunning against red brick and advises staying away from darker blues to avoid clashing. Both guides are written about exteriors.
Either way, blue contrasts the warm brick without competing with it. The downsides are real, though. Navy drifts toward black, as Hunker notes, and pale blue falls flat beside red brick, per Hunker. CertaPro (2022) also warns that darker blues can clash.
Teal splits the sources. Roomdsign recommends it for interior walls, while Hunker calls it too loud for a brick house exterior.
Green
Green is red’s complement.
That opposite-on-the-wheel pairing is a standard idea in color theory for interiors. Hunker says sage and evergreen contrast with brick yet read as dynamic, not clashing.
Sherwin-Williams lists Evergreen Fog SW 9130 at LRV 30.4, a medium value, and Brick and Batten calls Sage Mountain an ideal neutral for brick.
Muted sage and gray-green work. Bright, saturated green does not, and The Color Concierge (2024) uses fluorescent lime as its example of a bad match.
Black and charcoal
Heathered Nest picks Tricorn Black because it draws out the neutral grays and black flecks in the brick, not the redder shades. Roomdsign says a charcoal wall keeps the brick as the focal point and adds a modern edge.
Near-black paint reflects almost no light, and that is where it strains. Sherwin-Williams lists Iron Ore SW 7069 at LRV 5.55, and Tricorn Black sits lower still.
Iron Ore is the softer option, with a subtle green undertone according to Kylie M Interiors. Tricorn Black, per Heathered Nest, is saturated and free of undertones.
How do natural light and sheen change the way paint reads next to brick?
Light changes the read first, and sheen changes it second. North light cools the paint while the brick stays warm, south and west light add heat to both, and a glossier finish throws more of that light back.
Room orientation and light
| Orientation | Light quality | Effect on paint beside brick |
|---|---|---|
| North | Indirect, cool | Dulls gray, blue and lavender undertones |
| South | Warm, intense at midday | Pale tones keep the wall bright |
| East | Warm morning, cool by late afternoon | Color shifts across the day |
| West | Cooler morning, brighter afternoon | Orange-red tones turn vivid late in the day |
Benjamin Moore supplies the north row. Farrow and Ball covers the pale-tone advice for south and the timing for east and west, and the west orange-red effect comes from Sherwin-Williams (via Homes and Gardens).
Read together, the sources explain a trap with brick. Benjamin Moore says north light dulls cool-undertone colors, while Sherwin-Williams’ Sue Wadden says a warm orange-red looks brighter and warmer in a north-facing room.
So the brick holds its heat while a gray-leaning paint goes flat beside it. Choose the warmer neutral in north rooms.
Brightness matters here too. LRV runs from 0 (black) to 100 (white) and describes the paint only, never the room.
The wider mechanics of how light works in interior design explain why the same LRV lands differently in a north room and a south room.
Artificial light stacks on top. ENERGY STAR’s bulb guide (2009) places warm white at the 2700K end of its scale, the color of incandescent bulbs, and that cast adds to the brick’s own warmth.
Whatever the main ambient lighting is, judge the brick and the paint under it, not under daylight alone.
Sheen choice
How much light the wall throws back depends on the gloss of the finish.
Sherwin-Williams’ sheen guide describes flat as a non-reflective surface and names it alongside eggshell as a finish for hiding imperfections. Satin gets paired with eggshell in the guide’s advice for living rooms.
Brick is a rough, matte surface, so a low-sheen wall sits closer to its finish than a satin wall does.
Eggshell is the middle path for most living-room walls beside brick.
Splitting color between brick, walls, trim and ceiling
The 60-30-10 rule gives a room 60% of one dominant color, 30% of a secondary color and 10% of an accent, according to Ideal Home. Walls take the 60 in most rooms, so a brick wall has to be counted inside that split.
Martin Waller of Andrew Martin tells Ideal Home that walls dominate an interior more than any other component. The wall paint is where the split starts.
A single brick wall counts toward the 30, and the other walls take the 60. Brick on several walls becomes the 60, so the paint steps down to the 30 and stays muted. A fireplace or chimney breast on its own reads as part of the 10. That is an application of the rule, not a published figure.
Behr says red brick usually carries warm undertones, so trim colors should complement the brick and not fight it. Its guidance for deep red walls adds that trim and ceilings stay lighter so the room can breathe.
That points to a simple build. Warm white on trim and ceiling, one muted wall color, and the brick as the strongest element.
The accent slot takes the bolder colors, on cushions, art or a single painted piece.
A room color scheme generator can preview the split before any paint is bought.
How to test a paint color against brick before you buy
Test large, movable samples beside the brick, under the final bulbs, over about a week. A chip held up for a minute tells you almost nothing.
- Shortlist two or three colors from the undertone match, so the samples compare like with like.
- Build large samples by brushing two coats on white foam core with a white border (Benjamin Moore, JC Licht), or order peel-and-stick sheets.
- Stand each sample against the brick, then move it to another wall. CertaPro notes the color reads differently by location.
- Install the final bulbs first. CertaPro says overhead lights and lamps change the result.
- Check morning, afternoon, evening and lamp light. CertaPro suggests taking about a week.
- Hold samples against trim, flooring and furniture. Ringsend’s designer testing guide recommends testing next to the woodwork.
- Drop any color that fails in one lighting condition, and keep the one that holds across all of them.
Keep samples off the brick itself. A board leaned against the wall gives the same comparison and leaves the wall untouched.
Samplize makes peel-and-stick sheets of real paint, and Brick and Batten points to its 9 x 14.75 inch size. Samplize says each sample carries two coats.
The method does have a weak spot. Samplize finishes its Sherwin-Williams samples in satin (product page, October 2026), while Sherwin-Williams’ sheen guide points living rooms to satin or eggshell. A satin sample can read glossier than an eggshell wall.
Once one sample wins, a room paint calculator turns wall area into a quantity.
When does a paint color stop working with red brick?
Pairings usually fail because something around them changed. The color got picked on a screen, dark paint landed beside dark brick, or late sun pushed the red past what a warm neutral can calm.
Choosing from a screen
Benjamin Moore’s color pages warn that screen colors may differ and tell buyers to test samples (as of October 2026).
Brick makes that error costly, because the wall sits beside the paint and exposes every undertone shift.
Dark paint against dark brick
Farrow and Ball recommends dark walls in cool north light for a cosy, cocooning feel. Houzz warns that very dark brick hallways turn ominous unless the brick is gray.
The two pieces of advice collide in a dim room with dark brick. Dark paint stacked on dark brick leaves no light surface, so lighten the wall and let the brick carry the depth.
Low sun from the west
Sherwin-Williams’ Sue Wadden says a warm orange-red turns intensely vivid in a west-facing room in late afternoon (Homes and Gardens). Brick sits in that family, so a wall paint with more orange or red in it adds to the effect.
Go back to samples if the brick looks redder beside the sample than it does alone. The same goes for a sample that shifts toward gray or lavender by evening, or for two samples that match in daylight and separate under lamp light.
Common questions about paint colors for red brick walls
What wall color works with a red brick fireplace?
Pick the goal first, either to enhance the red or to tone it down. Kylie M Interiors builds most of its fireplace picks around softening, using neutrals that carry the brick’s own undertones.
Sample on the wall right beside the mantel, because wood and stone finishes shift the read.
Which paint colors suit an industrial loft or a farmhouse room with red brick?
Industrial lofts take the dark end, and farmhouse rooms take the warm end. Roomdsign says a charcoal wall keeps the brick as the focal point and adds a modern edge to a rustic room, which fits industrial loft design.
Farmhouse rooms lean on warm white or muted sage.
Should the red brick itself be painted?
That depends on the room. Houzz argues for painting dark brick in hallways and plain low fireplaces, and for leaving rustic, textured brick in a mudroom or entryway.
Red brick limits the color schemes a room can use, which is the usual reason to paint it.
Does the paint brand matter for red brick walls?
No. Sherwin-Williams and Benjamin Moore both publish an LRV for every color, and the named paints in this article come from both.
What decides the match is undertone and a sample under your own light.
Choosing the First Paint Sample for Red Brick
Sample a warm, muted off-white or greige first when the brick undertone is still unclear. Warm neutrals carry the lowest risk of a clash, and they reveal the brick’s undertone by comparison.
Put the warm neutral against the brick first. A mid-depth blue or muted green can go beside it next, and near-black only after daylight is confirmed.
A neutral that reads wrong exposes a misjudged undertone before contrast colors multiply the error.
The neutral does give up drama, so the brick stays the only strong element in the room.
If Alabaster wins the first sample round, the colors that pair with Alabaster cover furniture and trim.
The values here were read in October 2026, so re-check the LRV on the manufacturer page before buying.
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