Sherwin-Williams has named Celery SW 6421 its 2027 Color of the Year, a luminous light green that feels fresh rather than sharp. It’s the kind of soft, leafy shade that is neutral once it’s on the wall, which is why you’re going to see a lot of it.
If you’ve been staring at the same magnolia walls for a decade, or you painted everything cool gray and it now feels a bit cold, this is the color the paint world is telling you to pay attention to for the next 12 months.
So where does Celery actually work, what does it sit next to without clashing, and is this a whole-house move or a one-wall one?
Celery, the Sherwin-Williams 2027 Color of the Year
As an ex-event designer, I’ve always loved this time of year and eagerly awaited this announcement along with the Pantone Color of the Year in December.
Celery, unsurprisingly, is green and a bit more unusual than the colors we often get. I’m just glad it’s not avocado, as I don’t think a trip back in time to the avocado bathroom suite of the 1970s is what any of us needs.
Sherwin-Williams announced Celery as its 2027 pick after a run of nature-led choices. Urbane Bronze in 2021 was described as a warm and tranquil hue inspired by nature. Evergreen Fog followed as the 12th Color of the Year, the third time a green or gray shade had taken the top spot.
Light plays a big part when choosing colors, as I learned in my event design days, and a soft green like this changes with the light more than a beige does. In a north-facing room, it’s cooler and quieter, but in n a south-facing one it will look warmer and closer to a butter-yellow at midday.
Buy the sample pot before you commit to a gallon, and paint it on two walls, not one.
Where Celery Works Best in the House
Kitchens are the obvious first stop. A soft green on cabinets, especially lower cabinets under a lighter upper run, gives you the color hit without darkening the whole room. It sits comfortably next to wood counters, marble, quartzite, and the warm-white subway tiles.
If your kitchen has brass or unlacquered brass hardware, even better. Celery and warm metals are made for each other.
Bedrooms are the second place I’d try it. A soft green wall behind the bed reads restful in a way that gray never quite managed, and it stops the room from feeling like a hotel.
You don’t need to paint all four walls either. One wall in Celery with the other three in a warm white gives you the color without making the room feel smaller.
Bathrooms, particularly powder rooms, are the place to be braver. Small rooms can take a full-saturation color better than large ones, because you’re in and out and your eye doesn’t have time to be offended.
Living rooms are trickier, and I’d be careful here. In a large open-plan space, Celery can start to feel like a lot if it’s on every wall. Better to use it on one accent wall, on built-ins around a fireplace, or on the inside of a bookcase where it frames what’s on the shelves.
What to Pair Celery With
The good news with a soft green is that it’s forgiving. It sits next to warm whites, creams, soft pinks, terracotta, deep burgundy, navy, and almost any wood tone from pale oak through to walnut.
Metals are where you can lift the whole scheme. Brass, unlacquered brass, aged bronze, and copper all warm the green up and pull out its yellow undertones. Chrome and polished nickel cool it down and push it toward the mint end.
Matte black is the safest bet if you’re mixing metals across a kitchen, because it grounds the green without fighting it.
For a whole-house palette, I’d pair Celery with a warm white on ceilings and trim, a soft clay or terracotta as an accent in textiles and rugs, and one deeper color, either a warm burgundy or a moody navy, for the rooms that want more weight. Green needs a warm anchor next to it, or it can tend to drift toward institutional.
What to avoid: cool grays and stark bright whites. They fight the yellow in Celery and make it look sickly. If your trim is currently a builder-basic cool white, swap it for a warmer white before you paint the walls green. It’s the difference between the color working and it looking like a horrible mistake.
How to Use It Without Committing the Whole House
Painting the inside of a hutch or open shelving in Celery gives you the color as a backdrop for your ceramics and glassware, and it costs at most a quart of paint. The same trick works on the inside of a coat closet, the back of a bookcase, or staircase risers.
A front door is another good place to start. Celery on a front door is friendly rather than trendy, and it looks good against brick, stone, white siding, and gray siding. If you’re selling in the next couple of years, a freshly painted front door in a current color is one of the cheapest curb-appeal moves.
Furniture is the third route. An old dresser, a side table, or a set of dining chairs in Celery does the same job as a whole wall but takes an afternoon rather than a weekend.
Top Design Tip: buy a quart before you buy a gallon, and live with the color on your walls for at least three days. Look at it in morning light, midday light, evening lamplight, and overhead light. A green that looks fresh at 10 in the morning can go flat under a warm bulb at night, and you want to know that before you’ve painted the whole room.
Is It Actually Going to Suit Your House?
Color of the Year picks are all about marketing and PR. There’s a flurry of excitement, everyone talks about it for a month, and then promptly forgets it. Don’t get drawn in by it unless you truly love the color.
I do actually like this color; it’s a useful shade, and it will date more slowly than most, because greens borrowed from nature tend to age better than pinks and blues borrowed from a trend deck.
But you don’t have to paint anything just because a paint company said so. The question is whether Celery works with what you already own.
If your sofa is warm-toned, your rugs are earthy, your wood is on the warmer side, and your metals are brass or bronze, this color will slot in without a fight.
If your home is cool-toned, with gray floors, silver hardware, and blue-based whites, Celery will feel out of place, and you’re better off with a cooler green or a soft blue-gray.
Another thing to consider is how long you plan to stay. If this is your forever home, paint what you love and ignore the forecast. If you’re planning to sell in the next few years, stick to Celery in smaller doses: a powder room, a front door, an accent wall, the inside of a bookcase.
Buyers respond well to a house that feels current, but they don’t want to feel like they’ve bought someone else’s Pinterest board.
Disclaimer: This article is for general information only and is not professional advice. It may contain affiliate links. Please see our full Editorial Policy for details.
Kylie Lang is a nationally syndicated travel journalist with bylines on the Associated Press Wire & more, a lifestyle writer, and the founder and editor of Your Lifestyle Library (yourlifestylelibrary.com). She holds a BA (Honours) in History from the University of Kent and is a member of the British Guild of Travel Writers.