Charcoal Color Basement Family Room Walls

Charcoal color painted walls add a cozy vibe to this lake house basement family room.

Our basement family room got a fun little refresh for the new year and I’m so excited to share it. This formerly light and bright Lake House Basement Family Room started out as a playroom for our kids when we first built this home.

They were 5 and 8 when we moved in (sob!) and now at 10 and 13 our needs have changed a bit.

They wanted a more grown up feeling hang out spot. The Mr. also wanted a space that could double as a man cave, now that I have my own little oasis in the Guest Cottage. Ok, that’s fair.

As you can imagine the Mr. doesn’t typically have a whole lot of input to give when it comes to decor. However, for this space he was really pushing for black walls.

If you have taken our House Tour it’s pretty light and bright. I liked the thought of a cozy basement family room for movie nights and football games.

I however didn’t feel that straight up black paint for our home was the way to go. I wanted a color that would pair well with the rest of our House Paint Colors. Something nice and dark, but still warm and inviting.

Kendall Charcoal Paint Benjamin Moore

I went to my favorite local Benjamin Moore paint store and after staring at paint chips for about 15 minutes, decided to wing it with Kendall Charcoal. Kendall Charcoal by Benjamin Moore is a nice deep neutral gray. It has a nice muddy tone that makes it feel modern, but it still works well in a traditional space too.

I would typically recommend taking a paint sample home and testing it in your space with your light etc, etc, like a responsible person – but there was a snow storm coming and I knew I was going to be stuck at home for a few days so thankfully my winging it worked out ok.

I decided to paint the bookcase and the area behind the tv to give off a cozy library feeling. Plus the white bookcases were competing too much with the white trim around the windows. Now your eye is able to travel around the room easier.

Also, I’m waiting on new art to arrive for those brass frames, so ignore the sideways palm tree photos that came with the frames. It’s not my new avant-garde decor ;)

Best Charcoal Paint Color

Now that I have painted my basement Kendall Charcoal, I’m seeing the color pop up all over the place. I think it’s one of the best and most used dark charcoal gray paint colors and for good reason.

Bonus, when the Mr. got home from work he was SO excited. I went with his idea of “black” paint ha! A win for everyone.

What colors go with Charcoal Gray Paint?

Now that I settled on the dark gray paint, it was time to bring in some color. The beauty of a deep charcoal color like this is it’s still a great neutral, so it really works with a lot of colors.

I added this gorgeous Loloi Rug with rusts, navy, gray, and green tones. It really grounds the seating area.

I think leather looks so great with the dark gray walls as well so our game table and chairs play along nicely. So nicely in fact, that I have a larger leather ottoman coming to replace this light gray one. When it eventually ships, it will add to the whole man cave vibe but also be an easy to clean spot for teens to put their feet up.

Let’s talk about the rest of the furniture! I partnered with Article on this space for a new seating arrangement. Now that we have plenty of teens hanging out down here, the loveseat sectional combo didn’t really provide the most seating.

Switching it up to two large Kubi sofas facing each other works so well for this space.

The additional Entin chairs are great for playing video games or watching the big game.

I added more flexible seating by tucking these striped ottomans under the tv as well. They are easy to pull out for extra seating or a place to prop your feet up.

Oh and I finally added some storage under our tv! I’ve always been on the hunt for the perfect sized table to fit under our tv and never could find something the right height. This floating shelving unit solved all those problems and stores all the gaming gizmos and gadgets.

I’m calling this basement family room makeover 1.0 because I have really fun plans to add a wood ceiling down here, hopefully next month. So that will change the look of the space as well if our leather ottoman ever arrives.

We have been loving the new Charcoal color painted space and furniture arrangement and have already spent so man fun family nights down here!

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More Gray Paint Colors in our Home

• Functional Gray Boys Bedroom
• Boothbay Gray Mudroom
• Agreeable Gray Basement Family Room
• Silver Strand Primary Bedroom