A sage green and cream bedroom is soft without being plain. The green brings color to the walls, and the cream keeps the room light and warm.
The real choice is how much green you want. Some of these rooms are sage on every wall, and a few take it onto the trim and ceiling. Some keep it to one wall or the lower half. Others stay cream and bring sage in through a quilt or curtains.
1. A Paneled Sage Bedroom In Evergreen Fog
Finish: Sherwin-Williams Evergreen Fog SW 9130 on the paneling, walls, trim, baseboards and doors
Materials: An oatmeal upholstered bed, white and taupe bedding, drapes and pillows in Monika Hibbs’ Mable fabric in Olive, brass hardware
Difficulty: Easy, as the paneling was already there
This is the bedroom of Erin, who works on Monika Hibbs’ team. Sherwin-Williams sponsored the post and asked them to use its 2022 Color of the Year, a mid-tone blend of green and grey. It went on the paneling, walls, trim, baseboards and doors for an English farmhouse look.
Erin kept her oatmeal bed with its gentle arc. The bedding stays in whites and taupes, so the cream comes from the bed, not the walls.
2. A Vaulted Bedroom With Green Walls, Green Ceiling And Green-Grey Trim
Finish: Clare Money Moves on the walls and vaulted ceiling, Clare Grayish on the trim and millwork
Materials: A scalloped tan headboard, navy and white bedding, a patterned rug
Difficulty: Easy to intermediate, because of the tall ceiling
Stylist Ashley Whiteside’s clients in Oklahoma City had a 90s bedroom that felt “dated and cavernous.” The crisp light green runs all the way up the vaulted ceiling to play up the architecture. She tried Avocado Toast, Matcha Latte, Current Mood and Two Scoops first.
White trim felt too sharp for a bedroom, so the trim went a pale green-grey. Clare is a paint brand, and the page sells its own paints.
3. A London Bedroom In Lichen With Antiques And A Ditsy Print Bed
Finish: Farrow & Ball Lichen on the walls
Materials: A Soho Home bed, Sarah K Designs Ditsy Print bedding in Ruby, a Pooky bedside lamp
Difficulty: Easy, paint and styling
Louise Roe used Lichen in her last bedroom too, and it went up again here. She calls it “really warm,” and it sits well with her antiques. The small red and white print on the bed sits against the dark wood and the green.
A hand-painted scalloped night lamp from eBay and a pair of Tamegroute candlesticks on a plain fireplace finish the room.
4. A Grandmillennial Bedroom In Antique Jade With A Bowood Headboard
Finish: Benjamin Moore Antique Jade, a soft greenish blue with an LRV of 55
Materials: A secondhand Colefax and Fowler Bowood headboard and bedspread, mint linen drapes, green Schweitzer Linen sheets
Difficulty: Intermediate, as the whole room was sprayed
Alisa first painted this room Farrow & Ball DeNimes and found it “too dark, gloomy.” Antique Jade is much lighter, and she calls it a chameleon color. The room was planned around a Bowood headboard from Facebook Marketplace. The matching bedspread came from eBay.
She sprayed the whole room with a cordless handheld sprayer and painted the molding and doors by hand.
5. A Moody Grey-Green Bedroom In A Stockholm Apartment
Finish: A deep grey-green on the walls (the paint is not named)
Materials: Wooden floorboards, long linen-look curtains, an antique cabinet painted blue
Size: A 90-square-metre turn-of-the-century apartment
Difficulty: Easy, paint and one painted piece
This is the largest bedroom in a Stockholm apartment with sage green joinery all through it. It faces a quiet courtyard, and the walls go deeper and greyer than the rest of the home. The bed is made up in cream and olive.
A blue antique cabinet between the two tall windows is the one bright note.
6. A Hotel Bedroom With Chalky Green Linen Walls
Finish: Walls upholstered in a chalky green linen
Materials: A headboard in a G P & J Baker fabric, a white quilted cover, an olive bed skirt
Difficulty: Professional for the walls; the headboard idea is easy to copy
This is a hotel room, not a home: a bedroom at Ham Yard Hotel in London. Kit Kemp’s studio calls the linen walls “a timeless backdrop that is both subdued and romantic.” The contemporary patterned headboard pops against the plain sage.
At home, the same idea works with a painted sage wall and one bold fabric on the headboard.
7. A Light Sage Bungalow Bedroom With A Wood Headboard
Finish: Clare All The Sage, after the darker Field Trip
Materials: A light wood bed and headboard with built-in nightstands, a flat-woven rug, a walnut leaning mirror, black hanging lamps
Difficulty: Easy, paint, bedding and art
Orlando Soria rents this 1929 Spanish bungalow in Los Angeles. Trees and a narrow passage shade the bedroom, so he swapped a forest green for All The Sage, “a soft, relaxing earthy green.” Lighter, fluffier bedding and a wave art print came in with it.
The walnut mirror and black lamps are there “to make sure there was some edge left.” Clare, the paint brand, published the makeover.
8. A Sage Guest Room With Walnut Midcentury Furniture
Finish: Behr Marquee Minted Sage in eggshell, now discontinued
Materials: A vintage walnut dresser, vintage campaign nightstands, linen duvet covers from H&M, breezy curtains
Cost: The paint was a spare gallon she already had in the basement
Difficulty: Easy, paint only
Miranda Schroeder’s guest room in Indianapolis was plain grey before a leftover gallon of sage went on the walls. The warm walnut of the old dresser and nightstands sits well against the soft green, and white linen keeps the bed fresh.
She says in the comments that Behr no longer makes Minted Sage. A paint store can match it from a sample.
9. A Sage Bedroom With A Floor-To-Ceiling Wood Slat Headboard
Finish: A calm sage green on the walls and wardrobes (the paint is not named)
Materials: A custom headboard of wooden slats, a woven pendant, sage curtains
Difficulty: Intermediate, for the slat wall
In this 1940s corner apartment in Stockholm, a wall of wood slats runs from floor to ceiling behind the bed. The wardrobes are painted the same sage as the walls, so they blend in. A small desk, just a wooden top and two shelves, is painted to match.
The bed is dressed in blush and cream linen with a grey throw.
10. A Light Green 1920s Bedroom With A Home Office Corner
Finish: A calm light green on the walls (the paint is not named)
Materials: Elfa cabinets and a desk for the office corner, a paper lantern
Size: A 68-square-metre 1920s apartment
Difficulty: Easy
This bedroom in a 1920s Stockholm apartment is big enough for a small home office. The desk corner uses Elfa cabinets, and the page suggests IKEA Besta cabinets with a wooden worktop as another way to build it.
The bed stays cream, with a crochet-look throw, so the light green does all the color work. Lindholm styled the room for Historiska Hem.
11. A Scandi Sage Bedroom With Small Red Accents
Finish: Sage green on the walls (the paint is not named)
Materials: A white wardrobe, white curtains, light bedding, red cushions
Difficulty: Easy, paint and accents
Small touches of red do a lot in this Swedish bedroom. The cushions and accessories warm up the cool sage. Everything else stays white or cream, from the wardrobe to the curtains and bedding.
A small desk is fixed to the wall. Grey Deco styled the room for Alvhem.
12. A $500 Rental Bedroom In Sage With Wallpaper Above The Trim
Finish: Behr Nature’s Gift, two coats and three in places, with no primer
Materials: Spoonflower Ric Rac peel-and-stick wallpaper, wide Home Depot trim, brass Target curtain rods
Cost: $500 in all: wallpaper $200, paint and tools $100, trim $60, shelf brackets $16, curtains $100, rods $72
Difficulty: Easy to intermediate, with a nail gun for the trim
Chelsea Harris took her bedroom in a 1940s Portland rental from plain white to cottage. The wallpaper covers the top of the walls, and a wide trim along its lower edge makes it look built in. A thrifted wardrobe got a fresh coat of paint, and gauzy curtains soften the windows.
In a rental, the lease comes first, so ask the landlord before painting or adding trim.
13. A Sage Tongue-And-Groove Feature Wall In A New Build
Finish: Little Greene Ambleside on one feature wall
Materials: Tongue and groove paneling with a built-in shelf, linen bedding, a pale oak bed, an ochre throw, brass lights
Difficulty: Intermediate, for the paneling
This is one wall of sage in a new-build flat in east London, designed by Cate St Hill. The paneling also forms a shelf for books and objects, and the wall grounds the bed. Undone linen bedding in blush and cream, a thick shaggy rug and a warm ochre throw keep it soft.
The bed sits in a “commanding position,” following Feng Shui ideas.
14. A Two-Tone Half-Sage Wall In A Rented Flat
Finish: Little Greene Green Stone below, Wilko Chalk White on the top section and ceiling
Materials: A cane headboard, white and blush bedding, an olive velvet cushion, ProDec masking tape
Difficulty: Easy to intermediate, for a crisp paint line
This early-1900s flat is rented, so there is no paneling, only paint. The paint line sits above the headboard, with the wall light just below it, 49 to 52 inches from the floor because the walls are not level. The line was drawn with a spirit level and a soft grey pencil.
The makeover was part of a paid John Lewis collaboration, and the paint came with a press discount.
15. A Vert De Terre Spare Room With A Daybed
Finish: Farrow & Ball Vert de Terre, color-matched at Sherwin-Williams in satin
Materials: A trundle daybed, a countryside lumbar sham sent by Monika Hibbs Home, a wood dresser
Difficulty: Easy, paint and styling
Amanda Weldon’s spare room in a new home started out “dark and drab.” Farrow & Ball is harder to find in Canada, so her local Sherwin-Williams matched Vert de Terre. The daybed is piled with cream and white pillows, and the countryside sham gives it an English cottage feel.
Final Thoughts
Sage and cream work together because one brings color and the other keeps it soft. The rooms above show it at every level, from green walls, trim and ceiling to a white room with one green quilt.
First, decide how much green you want: every wall, one wall or half a wall, or only the bedding and curtains. Then buy two or three sample pots of the named paints and paint large swatches on two walls. Look at them in the morning and in the evening this week, and choose your bedding against the one you like best.
