Black Bedroom Paint Colours

Black walls are rarely the first thing that comes to mind when weighing up your bedroom design options. However, this bold colour choice can in fact prove very effective, transforming a lacklustre room into an inspired interior. 

Black paint colours are often used for freshening up kitchen cabinetry, while they’re becoming an increasingly popular choice for decorating living rooms. Whether you’re using cooler blacks or an intense true black, the darkest corner of the colour wheel can also deliver when it comes to redesigning your sleep space. 

Rather than make a room feel dark and claustrophobic, black paint colours give bedrooms an intimate and inviting feel. While many stick with neighbouring hues like grey when painting bedroom walls, they can also be paired with pure white and vibrant tones to create contrast. 

Have you grown tired of green and blue bedroom colour schemes? Now’s the time to wake up and embrace the potential of a black palette. 

If you find the idea of bedroom walls coated in a true black too intimidating, you might prefer a shade like Soothing Sapphire instead. It's a dramatic design choice, but far from overwhelming. Nonetheless, it’s dark enough that it delivers the high-impact aesthetics that make black walls a staple of many modern decorating trends.  

You can use this paint colour liberally in larger bedrooms to great effect, especially when it’s balanced out with a contrasting ceiling paint colour and flooring. If you’re decorating a smaller room, it might be an idea to use this shade for feature walls instead. 

Here’s another accessible alternative to true black. This stylish neutral is a deep mulberry, although it has just as much in common with black and grey as it does with purple. However, it works equally well alongside all three colour families. What’s more, it can be paired very effectively with warmer shades like pink. 

For a more luxurious bedroom redesign, use this as your backdrop, then upscale your design credentials with parquet flooring, solid brass fixtures and premium upholstery. 

If you’re thinking about a more intense colour for your bedroom walls, try Black Flame. This dark mulberry black is a dramatic choice, but it will bring a completely new energy to your sleep space. With some creative thinking, it can be used generously to decorate even the smallest of bedrooms. 

Searching for the perfect complementary colour? Turn to the opposite side of the colour wheel and balance out those mulberry notes with refreshing aqua tones or relaxing green shades and blues. 

Intense and alluring, Midnight River is a cool-toned Caribbean black that evokes the spirit of the sea. This black paint colour is the perfect choice for bedrooms that are too small to accommodate a pitch-black palette but are still dark enough that it delivers the drama. 

When choosing complementary colours, anything goes. High-contrast flooring is always a safe bet, although you add structure and balance things out with dark woods and charcoal fabrics. 

With its cool undertones and stormy character, Witchcraft is a real black beauty. Thanks to its subtle blue undertones, this black shade is incredibly accommodating and is well-suited to just about any bedroom. 

In a sleep space with limited dimensions, think about using it as a feature wall colour. You can then bring in cool grey paint hues or arctic blues, taking your inspiration from those icy undertones.

Considerations Before Using Black Paint in a Bedroom

Before you reach for that brush and start coating your bedroom walls in black, stop to ask yourself whether or not this is the right colour for your space. The colour black absorbs all light or rather all of its wavelengths. If your bedroom already suffers from little natural light, black walls are going to make the problem considerably worse. You can alleviate the issue slightly by being imaginative with bedroom lamps and mirror placement. However, this is never going to substitute for the real thing. 

Next, think about the overall size of your space. Because of its intensity, black is going to make even the largest of bedrooms feel smaller than it really is. You may decide that this is exactly what you’re going for. However, a more compact bedroom can easily feel claustrophobic if you’re painting every surface with the same black shade. 

Rather than let your roller run wild with black paint, stop to consider a feature wall instead. Even a small vertical surface painted black will take prominence in the bedroom, no matter which colour you’re pairing it with. If you do decide to go down this route, choose your second colour wisely. 

Choosing Paint Colours To Work with Black

Are you using a stunning black shade with subtle blue undertones? Use an icy hue as your main colour to create synergy. Do you want a modern bedroom interior? Black and grey are made to be with each other, while you can coordinate your feature wall with white for a timeless monochrome scheme. 

Even uplifting shades like orange and yellow can be used to great effect alongside a black colour scheme or inky feature walls. For a more sophisticated sleep space, you can even try working a regal purple into your black bedroom design plans.

Despite what you might think, you can even make a black-infused bedroom a warm one. Using earthy neutrals will ground a black feature wall, while jewel tones provide a smouldering contrast.