Why Are Gray Floors Seemingly Everywhere?

After the first time Anna Beagley saw gray floors, she couldn’t get them out of her mind. “It was love at first sight,” she said. “They’re a nice, neutral color but still give the room a light, airy vibe.”

She hasn’t looked back since 2021 when she renovated her home in Utah and installed the vinyl gray flooring. “I can add touches of any color I want without really worrying if it will clash,” said Ms. Beagley, 34, an analyst.

But she began to notice an impassioned discourse about dust-colored floors take place online. Tastemakers have drawn a line, and it’s black and white: You either adore them or despise them.

Gray floors have been a source of vitriol for many people, who’ve expressed their distaste on social media with posts that have frequently gone viral. One user tweeted, “Every time original hardwood floors are replaced by gray plank vinyl a year is taken from my life.” Another labeled them “AirBnbcore.” In an Instagram post that has garnered nearly 170,000 likes, designer Bilal Rehman said that gray flooring “sucks the life out of any space that you have.”

At times, all the hatred directed at gray flooring can feel tiresome, Ms. Beagley said. “Sometimes it’s laughable. They’re floors, people. It’s not life or death,” she said. “Other times I get a little frustrated, if you don’t like them don’t get them, but why does anyone feel the need to loudly proclaim their hate for them?”

In the past few years, gray flooring has become a default option among many developers. Designers and architects think the vast grayness is a result of the past decade’s dominating minimalist aesthetic, as well as developers viewing it as a safe and inoffensive option. Gray flooring in apartments is also often laminate — a synthetic material that gives the appearance of wood and is cheaper than real hardwood flooring.

In 2021, “Ultimate Gray” was a Pantone color of the year. Now, as interiors have become inundated with grayness and people closely associate the color with corporate neutrality, some designers are starting to notice clients’ tastes shift away from the ashen, the smoky and the silvery.

Grayed Out

“Gray flooring is the most common type of flooring we use in our multifamily apartment projects,” said Olga Cotofana, the senior director of design at the real estate development company PMG. The company’s buildings with gray floors include a high-rise in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., which opened in 2020, and an apartment complex in Miami’s Wynwood neighborhood, which is set to open later this year. “Gray flooring works well in new construction real estate developments because it appeals to the masses and works well with a variety of interior design and architectural elements on trend currently,” Ms. Cotofana said.

Lowe’s has seen an uptick in sales for gray wood, vinyl and tile, said Dean Schwartz, the company’s senior vice president of merchandising. “Parallel to an increase in consumer demand for a cool, modern aesthetic, we have seen sales of gray floor shades increase in recent years,” said Mr. Schwartz.

“They are nonconfrontational,” said Demetrios A. Comodromos, a co-founder of the architecture firm Method Design. “The desaturated approach also speaks to millennial color sensibilities, like Pepto-Bismol pink, pale yellows and other desaturated colors that have been the fad in recent years.”

For Audra Williams, 47, it’s what the gray floors symbolize that sparks irritation. Ms. Williams lives in a rural part of the Canadian province Nova Scotia, where many homes have been bought by investors and converted into rentals. She saw one particular apartment continue to show up on Facebook Marketplace, and it had gray floors.

“To me, it’s just layers of lack of care or concern for anybody who will be living in that building,” said Ms. Williams, a freelance communications consultant. “People just feel really powerless. So many people who are renting right now cannot find anything other than this super gray, bleak, pretty cheap flooring. People tend to choose it for other people more than they choose it for themselves.”

Diana Viera, a managing partner at the design firm Italkraft, said that she first started to notice gray flooring taking off in the United States after its presence at the Salone del Mobile design fairs in Milan in the 2010s. “Typically, whatever the new design is in Italy, it starts trickling into the U.S.,” she said.

What comes next is a tale perhaps best summed up by Miranda Priestly, the fictional fashion editor played by Meryl Streep, in “The Devil Wears Prada,” explaining to her assistant how trends can flow from high fashion brands to casual wear. After some luxury designers debuted cerulean garments in their…