The best blue paint colors, according to design pros

Whether it’s the ultramarine of an Yves Klein masterpiece or the faded chambray of a shirt worn soft over decades, blue sets a certain tone. A moody navy can provide a dose of quiet luxury, while a chalky powder blue emits a soft, sunlit charm. As a paint color, it’s endlessly versatile, in part because it works well with many other colors.

“I’ve never really heard anyone say, ‘I don’t like blue,’” says Mark D. Sikes, a designer in Los Angeles who has become something of a design diplomat for the hue. But beware — the wrong tone can skew “baby’s room” fast.

“People are afraid of saturated colors, which is really silly, so they tend to go too light — and that winds up being a little bit ‘nursery,’” says Jess Knauf, a designer in Denver. “If you embrace the saturation and really commit to that gorgeous depth, it’ll pay off in spades. It’s a little more grown up.”

Ian Parker of Parker + Co, agrees that depth is critical. “I would stay away from primary colors in blue and find something a little more sophisticated,” Parker says. The goal is to look for a blue that has an undertone of some kind, such as a muddy gray-blue or sea foam. “No electric blues, no sky blues … you’ve got to step into the in-between areas, because you can’t go wrong with it.”

And if you’re nervous about diving into deep blue waters, just dip a toe in. “I use blue very sparingly for punctuation points, almost like designers use black,” says Jeffrey Alan Marks, a designer in Montecito, Calif.

Here are nine shades of blue that designers swear by.

Sikes, author of “Forever Beautiful,” is particularly fond of Farrow & Ball’s Skylight, which he recently used in a primary bedroom in Hinsdale, Illinois. “Skylight is that perfect color of blue that has just enough gray in it that it kind of goes with everything, in all different types of light,” he says. And just because it’s blue, that doesn’t mean it’s sad. “It feels fresh, it feels optimistic, and it feels happy,” he adds.

Even if she can’t quite define the shade, this teal — Newburg Green, by Benjamin Moore — is one of Knauf’s go-to colors. “It’s so rich, it’s so nuanced,” she says. “You can’t really tell — is it a blue? Is it a green? It’s a very traditional color to me and would be at home in Colonial Williamsburg or something.” Knauf notes that it’s also a shape-shifter that can work in more sleek, modern spaces. “Think about a sexy library in a mid-century [building] with dim lights.”

For a bunk room in a riverside vacation home in Texas, Austin-based designer Sara Malek Barney, of Bandd/Design, sought a blue that felt ageless and would appeal to all kinds of people. Sherwin-Williams’s Riverway was the winner. “It has a green undertone, and played to the nature that’s right outside the window,” she says. The shade, which is not too dark, not too perky, acts as the Goldilocks of blues.

Parker transformed a formerly muraled living room in a brick Chicago rowhouse into a space that suited his young clients better. “We wanted to do something bold and classical, but still make it hip,” he says. Enter Farrow & Ball’s Hague Blue, which has great “bang for your buck,” he says, noting that they used a flat finish on the walls and gloss on the trim. “It gives you just this big, bold drama without being obnoxious. It’s not bright and irritating. It’s actually calming. And it’s very classic to me.” Designer Amy Aidinis Hirsch also used this color in a Greenwich, Connecticut, room. “I love it because it’s sultry, it’s a little bit gritty … it’s somewhere that lives between blue and green.”

When Knauf needed to spruce up an old rental house of hers that was in bad shape, she turned to Benjamin Moore’s Polar Ice. The barely-there blue has a coolness that makes even neglected spaces feel intentional. “It’s really clean and bright … it just felt fresh,” Knauf says. “It looked so good in a closet, where you just kind of want a clean, fresh start.”

Blue is a natural on ceilings for obvious reasons. Colette van den Thillart, a Toronto-based designer, said in an email that she used Benjamin Moore’s Winter’s Eve in a glossy finish on a dining room ceiling, to create “a moody but cheerful vibe.” Darker shades are perfect for ceilings, she said, because they recede. “Gloss finishes act like mirror, so a dark gloss blue was a dramatic choice perfect for enchanting dinners.”

James Yarosh, an interior designer and gallerist in Holmdel, New Jersey, selected “a unifying neutral,” Benjamin Moore’s Yarmouth Blue, as a serene backdrop for his New York City client’s collection of black and white abstract art. “The blue added brightness and life as a foil to the strength of the artworks,” Yarosh says.