Five whites. I’m going to say that again because the absurdity still hasn’t worn off. I painted my bedroom wall five different shades of white over four weekends before I found the one that actually worked. Each time I thought I’d nailed it, the light would shift — morning to afternoon, overcast to sun, summer to autumn — and the color would transform into something I hadn’t chosen.
A white with the faintest yellow undertone looked warm and lovely in the paint shop under fluorescent lighting. On my north-facing bedroom wall in January, it looked like a smoker’s ceiling. A cool white that seemed clean and crisp at the store felt like a hospital corridor by week two. A grey-white that photographed beautifully for the first Instagram story turned depressingly cold by November.
This is the fundamental challenge of choosing colors in the Nordics, and nobody warns you about it until you’re three paint cans deep with masking tape tangled in your hair.
The Problem (and Beauty) of Nordic Light
Nordic light is unlike anywhere else I’ve lived. And I’ve lived in enough places to compare — Rome, where the light is golden and forgiving; London, where it’s grey and diffuse; Lisbon, where it’s sharp and white. Helsinki light does something none of those do: it changes personality entirely depending on the season.
From late May through July, we get almost twenty hours of daylight. The sun stays low, casting long horizontal beams that flood rooms with a warm, almost amber light well into the evening. Colors look their richest during these months. Everything glows.
Then October arrives, and the light begins its retreat. By December, we’re down to six hours of daylight — and those six hours are often a dim, slate-grey wash that barely qualifies. Whatever color is on your walls will be experienced primarily under artificial light for roughly five months of the year.
Your color palette has to work in both realities. The golden flood of June and the grey whisper of December. The bright morning when sun ricochets off snow outside your window and the 3 pm twilight when the room depends entirely on your lamps. This is what makes Nordic color choices more complex than anywhere else, and it’s why generic paint advice from warmer countries often fails here.
Warm White vs. Cool White: The Debate That Actually Matters
Every Nordic homeowner eventually ends up in this argument, either with a partner, a friend, or their own reflection in a paint-splattered mirror. Warm white or cool white?
The short answer: almost always warm. Not yellow, not cream — just warm. A white with the slightest touch of warmth counteracts the cool blue-grey cast of Nordic winter light and prevents your room from feeling sterile. In the long summer light, a warm white reads as neutral. In winter, it reads as inviting. That’s the range you want.
Cool whites — those with blue or grey undertones — can look spectacular in Mediterranean or tropical light where there’s plenty of natural warmth to balance them. In Helsinki in February, they make your home feel like an operating theater.
The white I finally settled on for my bedroom (after those five attempts) is Tikkurila’s “Paper Y459.” It’s a warm white with the tiniest hint of yellow-grey, which sounds contradictory but somehow works. In summer, it’s virtually neutral. In winter, under my 2700K lamps, it has a gentle warmth that keeps the room from feeling cold. At around €35 per 2.7 litre can, it’s not the cheapest option, but after five rounds of testing, I wasn’t about to cheap out on the final answer.
Teknos is the other Finnish paint brand I trust. Their “Bianco T1249” is slightly cooler than the Tikkurila Paper but still firmly in the warm camp — good if you want a white that feels a touch more modern and crisp without going clinical. I used it in my kitchen and bathroom, where the tiles and fixtures are cooler-toned and benefit from a white that leans slightly in their direction.
The 60-30-10 Rule (Nordic Edition)
You’ve probably heard the 60-30-10 rule: 60% of your room is a dominant color, 30% is secondary, and 10% is an accent. It’s a solid framework, but in Nordic contexts it needs some adjustment.
In my apartment, the breakdown looks like this:
60% — Warm neutrals: Walls, ceiling, large furniture surfaces. This is the Paper Y459 white on walls, the pale birch floor, the light grey linen of the sofa. These surfaces form the background of the room, and in a Nordic home, they need to be light enough to maximize whatever natural light is available while warm enough to avoid a cold feeling in winter.
30% — Natural mid-tones: Furniture wood tones, larger textile pieces, the darker floor area near walls. For me, this means the oak-toned dining table, the warm grey wool rug, the birch bookshelves. These tones add depth and grounding without making the room feel dark. They’re the visual weight that stops a light room from feeling washed out.
10% — Accent color: This is where you get to play. In my current scheme, it’s a muted sage green — present in a few cushions, one ceramic vase, the spines of some books I’ve deliberately arranged (yes, I’m that person), and a trailing plant or two. The accent color is what gives the room character and is also the easiest thing to change when you want a refresh.
The Nordic modification to this rule is that your 60% does more heavy lifting than it would in, say, a Spanish villa with abundant light. Because our daylight is limited for half the year, those base colors need to actively contribute to the room’s sense of warmth and brightness rather than just being a neutral backdrop. Choosing the wrong white for your 60% will undermine everything else, no matter how perfectly you select your accent colors.
Sage Green: Why It Works So Well Up Here
I’ll admit to a bias — I’m fully in the sage green camp and have been for about two years. But there’s a reason this particular color has become so popular in Nordic interiors, and it goes beyond trend following.
Sage green is a mid-tone with grey undertones, which means it behaves well in both bright and low-light conditions. In summer daylight, it reads as a fresh, natural green — alive and connected to the landscape outside. In winter under warm artificial light, it deepens into something earthier and more cocooning, almost like dried herbs. It doesn’t fight the grey winter light; it absorbs it and gives something back.
I painted the alcove wall in my bedroom sage green — Tikkurila “Pesto M384” if you want the exact shade. It’s a bold-for-me choice: a definite color on a wall that had been white for years. The rest of the room stayed in warm whites and natural wood tones, so the green wall becomes a focal point without overwhelming the space.
Paired with linen bedding in natural oatmeal tones and the birch-framed mirror leaning against the adjacent white wall, the green feels both modern and deeply rooted in something older. It reminds me of the forests outside the city, which I think is the whole point. In a Nordic home, colors that reference the natural landscape feel instinctively right because the relationship between interior and exterior is so fundamental up here.
Other greens that work well: Teknos “Sage Leaf” (cooler, more grey, very sophisticated in north-facing rooms) and Tikkurila “Wilderness V379” (deeper, more saturated, better for smaller accent walls or alcoves).
Earth Tones and Why the All-Grey Trend Should Stay in 2019
For a while — maybe 2016 through 2019 — Nordic interiors went through a grey phase. Grey walls, grey sofas, grey rugs, grey everything. It was everywhere on Instagram. It looked great in photos with professional lighting. In real life, in actual Nordic light, it was depressing.
Grey amplifies the worst qualities of winter light. A grey room on a grey day in a grey city feels exactly like what it sounds like. I watched several friends paint their apartments various shades of grey during that period, and every single one of them has since repainted.
The corrective has been a shift toward earth tones — warm terracotta, ochre, clay, rust, sand, mushroom. These colors do what grey promised but couldn’t deliver: they provide a sophisticated neutral that works in Nordic light conditions because their inherent warmth counteracts the cool environment.
My dining nook has a single wall in Tikkurila “Clay M411” — a muted, pinkish terracotta that I agonized over for weeks before committing. In the morning, with east-facing light, it has a gentle peachy warmth. In the evening under candlelight, it deepens to something almost like old brick. It’s become my favourite surface in the apartment, which I never expected from a paint color that scared me in the swatch.
Earthy neutrals are also incredibly versatile as base tones. A warm mushroom grey (NCS S 2005-Y50R is a good reference code — ask at any Tikkurila stockist) can replace pure white in rooms where you want more warmth and intimacy without committing to a “color.” I’ve seen this used beautifully in bedrooms and reading nooks, where the goal is cocoon-like comfort rather than bright openness.
The Testing Process I Should Have Used From the Start
After the Five Whites Incident, I developed a testing protocol that has saved me from similar disasters. It takes more time upfront but far less time (and money, and emotional energy) overall.
Step 1: Get the largest samples available. Tikkurila and Teknos both sell sample pots — usually 0.33 litres, enough to cover roughly a square meter. Buy them. Do not make decisions based on swatches, fan decks, or paint chips. They are essentially useless in real conditions.
Step 2: Paint the sample on the actual wall. Not on a board that you then hold against the wall. On the wall itself, in a patch at least 50 × 50 cm. Different wall surfaces absorb light differently, and the color will look different on your wall than on any test surface.
Step 3: Live with it for at least three days. This is the hard part, because you want an answer now and the patch looks weird sitting there on the wall next to the old color. But you need to see the sample in morning light, afternoon light, overcast light, evening artificial light, and ideally in both sunny and grey weather. Take photos at different times — your phone camera will exaggerate some differences, but the record is still useful for comparison.
Step 4: Test two to three options simultaneously. Paint them side by side so you can compare directly. The differences between similar shades are almost impossible to evaluate in isolation, but placed next to each other, one will clearly feel warmer or cooler, lighter or darker.
Step 5: Stand back. Way back. To the opposite wall. The color you see from 30 cm away is not the color you’ll experience from across the room. Distance softens and blends, and the overall impression at room-scale is what matters.
I bought a Tikkurila Feelings Tester kit recently — it comes with five small pots of their most popular whites and neutrals for about €28 total. Best money I’ve spent on paint, and I wish it had existed when I was doing my bedroom.
Specific Color Recommendations (the Actual Names and Numbers)
I know how frustrating it is to read a paint guide that says “choose a warm white” without telling you which one. So here’s my working list — the colors I’ve personally tested, used, or seen in friends’ apartments in Helsinki. All are available at Stockmann, K-Rauta, or Värisilmä.
Whites:
- Tikkurila “Paper Y459” — my warm white of choice, works everywhere
- Teknos “Bianco T1249” — slightly cooler warm white, good for kitchens
- Tikkurila “Lumi F497” — a true warm white that doesn’t yellow, good for small rooms
Greens:
- Tikkurila “Pesto M384” — my bedroom sage green, beautiful mid-tone
- Teknos “Sage Leaf” — cooler, greyer, very elegant
- Tikkurila “Wilderness V379” — deeper green for accent moments
Earth tones:
- Tikkurila “Clay M411” — muted terracotta, stunning in east-facing rooms
- Tikkurila “Savanna Y396” — soft ochre, like late afternoon sun
- NCS S 2005-Y50R — mushroom grey, ask for it at any Tikkurila stockist
Blues (use sparingly up here):
- Tikkurila “Denim M370” — muted enough to not feel cold, works as accent
- Tikkurila “Archipelago N366” — soft grey-blue, good for bathrooms
Pulling It All Together: My Room-by-Room Approach
I don’t use the same palette in every room, but I use a connected palette. Think of it as variations on a theme rather than identical repetition.
The living room and kitchen (which share an open floor plan in my apartment) are the lightest: Paper Y459 on all walls, pale birch floor, with the warm wood tones and sage green accents I described. This zone gets the most light and needs to feel open and social.
The bedroom is more enveloping: same white on three walls but the sage green Pesto M384 on the alcove wall. The linen textiles are warmer here — oatmeal, warm cream, a hint of blush. The lighting is dimmer and warmer. It’s a retreat from the living space, and the color shift marks that transition.
The bathroom is cooler and crisper: Teknos Bianco on the walls, white subway tile, grey grout. The only warmth comes from a wooden shelf and the warm brass of the faucet and towel hooks. Bathrooms can handle cooler tones because you’re never in there long enough for the coolness to feel oppressive.
The hallway, which has no natural light, is painted in the warmest option: Tikkurila Savanna Y396, a soft ochre that glows under the wall-mounted brass lamp and makes the transition from outside (cold, dark) to inside (warm, bright) feel immediate and welcoming.
Each room connects to the next through shared material tones (birch wood, brass hardware) and through the gradual warm-to-cool shift as you move from private to public spaces. It’s not a formula — it’s a feeling. But working out the underlying logic before you start painting saves an enormous amount of backing and filling.
For more on how this kind of palette thinking fits into broader Scandinavian design, my post on Scandinavian interior design principles covers the wider philosophy. And if you’re feeling adventurous, my DIY concrete effect wall paint tutorial is a great textural alternative to flat color.
The Thing Nobody Tells You About Color in the North
Color up here isn’t static. It’s a living thing that changes with the seasons, the weather, the time of day, and the angle of light through your particular windows. A color that sings in June will whisper in November. A shade that feels moody and dramatic in winter afternoon light might wash out entirely in summer’s endless glow.
This isn’t a problem. It’s a feature. Your home shifts and breathes with the year, and your color palette is part of that rhythm. The sage green on my bedroom wall is a different green in every month — fresh and bright in May, deep and forest-like in October, almost grey-green in the flat December light. I love every version.
So my final piece of advice is this: don’t try to find a color that looks the same all the time. Find one that you enjoy in all its variations. Paint the sample. Watch it change. If every version makes you feel something good — even if the feeling is different each time — you’ve found your color.
And maybe buy a few extra sample pots. You’ll probably need them.
If you’re working with a small space where color choices become even more critical, my post on making a small living room feel bigger has some thoughts on how palette restraint can amplify your sense of space.
