Outdated Entryway Paint Colors To Avoid In 2025 (And What To Try Instead)

As home decor and interior design trend ever more toward individual expression, our entryways become even more important first-impression points. We're shifting away from a pointed focus on creating order and calm (though of course we still want to keep our entryways clean and organized) and amping up the warmth to create the ideal backdrop upon which to layer our delightful peculiarities. Which means go-to cool colors like white, grey, and navy blue are being crowded out by vibrant, earth-based tones like browns, greens, and reds.

Deciding on paint colors to use in your home — and particularly in your entryway — can be a daunting task. Especially when you take into account the influence color can have on your mood. Of course, we still want to create that "ahhhhh" sensation when we walk through the door, both for ourselves and for our guests. Colors on the cool side of the wheel give us that, evoking calm from a sense of sterility, tranquility, and uniformity, though it can easily drift too close to the edges of apathy — a sensation (or lack thereof) that even a bold navy blue couldn't pull us out of. Delightfully, any color theory-based problem has a color-based solution, and this one is simple enough: heat it up.

You should repaint your home's entryway every two to three years anyway, so why not follow the lead of forward-looking designers and lean into the warm side of the color wheel? Browns like Pantone's 2025 color of the year, Mocha Mousse, are set to carry us into a much warmer season of home styling. And it isn't just Pantone that's pinpointed shades of coffee and chocolate as top colors in 2025. Stainmaster has chosen Truffle as its color of the year, and Little Green landed on Mochi, which carries some undertones of pink in its dessert-inspired shade.

Your entryway should speak to the rest of your house in order to create a sense of flow. If you've got a house full of whites and grays, rather than paint your foyer a dark chocolate color, you may want to go for a warmed up version of the color you've already chosen. A dreamy cream or greige, heavy on the brown tones, will create a nice transition.

For homes with lots of blues or blue undertones, go for a teal green or purple shade. It will feel like a natural transition into the rest of the house. Mixing blue and brown (depending on the tints) will create purplish or sea green colors, which, incidentally, are also top picks for 2025.

Fans of the bold navy trend may actually prefer to pivot to another beautifully intense color choice that's being highly lauded in the design world for 2025: green. Bright and playful paint colors are making their way back into 2025 home trends, and shades from emerald to moss are bringing nature's signature color into our decor. It works so well in so many spaces in part because it is almost immeasurably versatile. Nature herself has provided us with countless shades of green, so it feels organic and familiar.

Going for a bold forest color in your entryway would make a striking statement, and tempering the more saturated green shades with grey or blue will help your foyer continue to feel connected to the rest of the house without having to repaint everything. Ocean blues are a decidedly more complex and nature-inspired hue than true navy, and thus more in line with current trends. Still, greens often lean into the cool side of the spectrum so be sure to add in other warm elements like wood tones, rust colors, and even rich, earthy reds.

According to the ever evolving field of the psychology of color, reds can evoke love, passion or anger. Because of this intensity, a bright, fire-engine red is probably not high on your list of color considerations in your entryway. However, muddier versions are showing up all over in current design trends. Behr paint even named Rumors — a dark red with brown undertones — as their color of the year. Since color drenching is big for 2025, you could go bold and do your whole entryway in a toned-down berry shade. Or mix in a little of that classic white that you've got throughout the rest of the house and go for a pink toned cream.

If you're wondering how to decorate your foyer, it will be all about personality and warmth in the coming years. So reconsider painting your entryway gray and use that space to pull in warm colors you're already highlighting around your house. Then, add in your favorite functional and artistic pieces to make your entryway feel more inviting, helping to build a space that feels like you.