This Is Why Chip and Joanna Gaines Painted Their Son’s Nursery Gray

As usual, Joanna Gaines is inspiring her audience to think outside the box at home — this time, she’s tackling the way we think about picking the paint color for nurseries.

For her son Crew’s nursery, Jo went with a color not often seen in kids’ spaces. But the reason she chose it makes a lot of sense.

“It’s a rich gray,” Jo said of the paint color in Crew’s room in a roundtable discussion back in June, per House Beautiful. “His personality is so layered, that when I think about what I’m layering on, it’s all his colorful books that I really want to highlight.” Husband Chip Gaines added, “The stuffed animals pile high.”

To provide that perfect backdrop for the colorful array of books and toys, Jo went with “Garden Trowel” from her Magnolia Home paint line, which is described as a gray-brown, and that warm undertone also brings out the richness of the wood tones and creams she used in the space.

Crew, who turned three this year, is the youngest of five Gaines kiddos, each of whom has inspired Jo and her design as they grow up. “As the kids get older, they really teach me how to design just by listening and hearing what they love,” she says. “That’s what helps you make these decisions.”

“The rooms should feel like the child and not like the designer,” she said. And she proved that sentiment to be true when she shared a snap of her daughter Ella’s room in May.  

Pastel pinks, blues, greens, and yellows, are cute and traditional, but as Jo has taught us, it pays off to think differently.