Short answer. Benjamin Moore’s Colour of the Year 2026 is Silhouette AF-655, a deep espresso brown with charcoal in it and a published LRV of 10.18. Sherwin-Williams chose Universal Khaki SW 6150, a mid-tone tan.
Behr chose Hidden Gem, a smoky jade, and Valspar chose Warm Eucalyptus. For 2027, Valspar, Behr and Glidden have announced; Benjamin Moore and Sherwin-Williams had not when we checked on 2026-09-14.
The part the brand pages leave out is the light. Ottawa gets under nine hours of daylight at the winter solstice, and a colour picked on a bright September afternoon is lived with mostly in the dark half of the year.
Below are five brands in one table, then what that means for dark browns, tans and greens on real Ottawa walls, and how to sample before you buy a gallon. If you would rather have someone walk the rooms with you, that is what our colour consultation is for.
On this page
- Five brands’ 2026 and 2027 colours, checked 2026-09-14
- Why an Ottawa December changes the answer
- Silhouette AF-655 in a real Ottawa house
- Universal Khaki, Hidden Gem and Warm Eucalyptus
- The 2027 colours announced so far
- How to sample a colour of the year before you commit
- Should you paint a whole house in a colour of the year?
- Colour of the year: common questions
Five brands’ 2026 and 2027 colours, checked 2026-09-14
| Brand | 2026 colour | LRV | 2027 colour | LRV | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Benjamin Moore | Silhouette AF-655 | 10.18 | Not announced | n/a | No 2027 colour yet. Its 2026 colour came on 2025-10-16 |
| Sherwin-Williams | Universal Khaki SW 6150 | 40 | Not announced | n/a | No 2027 colour yet. Its 2026 colour came on 2025-09-24 |
| Behr | Hidden Gem N430-6A | 14 | Grounded T27-01 | 11 | 2027 colour announced 2026-08-26 |
| Valspar | Warm Eucalyptus 8004-28F | 21 | Cottage Door 8004-38E | 26 | 2027 colour announced 2026-08-05 |
| Glidden | Warm Mahogany PPG1060-7 | Not published | Artifact PPG10-16 | Not published | 2027 colour published on glidden.com |
Names, codes and dates come from each manufacturer’s own announcement: Benjamin Moore, Sherwin-Williams, Behr, Valspar and Glidden. LRVs are the figures shown on each brand’s own colour page. Benjamin Moore publishes them to two decimals and the others as whole numbers. Glidden’s colour pages did not show an LRV, so those cells say so rather than borrow a number from somewhere else.
Sherwin-Williams skipped a single colour for 2025 and named a nine-colour capsule instead, which is why its archive goes from Upward SW 6239 (2024) straight to Universal Khaki.
Why an Ottawa December changes the answer
On 2026-06-21 the sun rises over Ottawa at 5:14 a.m., sets at 8:54 p.m., and stands 68 degrees above the horizon at noon. On 2026-12-21 it rises at 7:39 a.m., sets at 4:22 p.m., and never climbs past 21.2 degrees. That is 15 hours 40 minutes of daylight against 8 hours 43 minutes, from timeanddate.com’s Ottawa tables.
The direction matters as much as the hours. In December the sun comes up in the southeast and goes down in the southwest, so a north-facing window in Ottawa gets no direct sun at all for the whole winter. In June the same window catches early morning and late evening sun, because the sun rises and sets north of due east and west.
A north room that felt pleasant when you chose its colour in summer is, by physics, a different room in January.
LRV is the number that connects the two. Benjamin Moore defines it as the percentage of light a surface reflects, from 0 for absolute black to 100 for pure white. Silhouette at 10.18 sends back about a tenth of the light that hits it.
Universal Khaki at 40 sends back four times as much. Which one suits a room depends on how much light that room gets in January, not on how it looked when you chose it.
Silhouette AF-655 in a real Ottawa house
Benjamin Moore lists Silhouette for interior and exterior use, suggests it for projects from trim and cabinets to front doors, and files it under both gray and neutral. At an LRV of 10 it behaves like a dark colour wherever it goes, so the question is where dark earns its place.
Rooms used at night. A den, a dining room or a powder room is mostly seen under lamps. A deep brown there does not lose anything to the short winter day, because the room was never relying on it.
North rooms you work in. A home office or a north-facing kitchen used at 4 p.m. in January is the risky case. Sample it there before anywhere else, and consider putting Silhouette on a lower wall, an island or the doors while a lighter colour carries the walls.
Trim and doors in older homes. Dark trim and front doors suit the deep, layered woodwork in the pre-war streets of the Glebe, Sandy Hill and Centretown. That woodwork is also where old paint lives. Health Canada’s guidance is that a house built before 1960 probably contains lead-based paint, so a colour change on original trim starts with how the old coats are prepared, not with the colour.
That is the method on our lead-safe painting page, and it is a way of working rather than a certification.
One practical cost of any deep colour: it is tinted into a base carrying less white, so it often needs an extra coat to cover evenly, and going back to a light colour later needs a proper primer. That shows up in a painting quote, and our guide to what house painting costs in Ottawa walks through the other things that move the number.
Universal Khaki, Hidden Gem and Warm Eucalyptus
Sherwin-Williams calls Universal Khaki a reliable choice for common areas, and at an LRV of 40 it is the only 2026 pick on this list that sits in the middle of the scale.
That makes it the easiest of the five to carry through connected rooms, where one wall colour runs from the front door to the kitchen and has to work in the bright room and the dim hallway at once. Test it in both, and hold the board down at the floor line as well as at eye level, because a mid-tone tan sits right beside most wood floors.
Behr’s Hidden Gem is a smoky jade that the company describes as a blend of blue and green, at LRV 14. Valspar’s Warm Eucalyptus is a grounded green with warm undertones, at 21. Both are on the dark side of the scale, so the north-room advice above applies to them as well.
If you like either, sample it on the wall that gets the least sun. Our house painting in Ottawa page covers how a repaint runs once the colours are settled, from the free estimate to the walkthrough.
The 2027 colours announced so far
Valspar went first, naming Cottage Door 8004-38E on 2026-08-05: a mid-tone neutral blue that, in Valspar’s words, blends warm and cool undertones. Its LRV is 26. Behr followed on 2026-08-26 with Grounded T27-01, an olive green moving between olive and moss with brown undertones, at LRV 11.
It marks ten years of Behr’s colour of the year program. Glidden’s 2027 page names Artifact PPG10-16, which the page itself calls a calm, fresh aqua.
Grounded is nearly as dark as Silhouette, so everything above about north rooms applies to it too. Cottage Door, at 26, is lighter than either but still well below the middle of the scale, so in a room with no direct winter sun it is worth a four o’clock test before anything else.
Still to come. Benjamin Moore and Sherwin-Williams had not named 2027 colours when we checked on 2026-09-14. We are not going to guess. What their own records show is timing: Benjamin Moore announced on 2023-10-11, 2024-10-16 and 2025-10-16, and Sherwin-Williams announced its 2026 colour on 2025-09-24. This page will be updated when each one publishes.
How to sample a colour of the year before you commit
A brand shows its colour of the year in styled, well-lit photographs. Your wall is lit by one window and a ceiling fixture. Five checks close most of that gap.
Sample big, and in two coats. A chip is a few square centimetres surrounded by white card. Paint a board at least the size of a sheet of paper, give it two coats, and let it dry fully before you judge it. One coat of a deep colour like Silhouette over a white board tells you almost nothing.
Move the board, not the wall. Carry the board to every wall the colour will go on, including the one beside the window and the corner that never gets sun. A test patch painted onto the old colour is read against the old colour, which skews it.
Look at it at 9 in the morning and 4 in the afternoon. In December the sun is down in Ottawa by about 4:22 p.m., so from November to February the late afternoon read is the one that counts. Check the board again with your own lamps on.
Hold it against what is staying. Floors, counters, brick, tile and stained trim do not change colour to suit the paint, and they sit beside the wall every day. Judge the board next to them, at the floor line and beside the counter, rather than on a blank stretch of wall.
Check the LRV before you fall for it. If a room already feels dim, a colour with an LRV around 10 will make it darker, full stop. That can be exactly what you want in a den. It is a much harder call in a north-facing kitchen you cook in at 5 p.m. in January.
Screens are the worst place to judge any of these. The swatch on a brand’s website is an approximation, and a phone adjusts its own brightness to the room you are sitting in.
Should you paint a whole house in a colour of the year?
Look at how quickly the picks move. Benjamin Moore went from Blue Nova for 2024 to Cinnamon Slate for 2025 to Silhouette for 2026. Each pick is a one-year label, and a repaint is not.
So the lower-risk way to use one is where it is cheap to change: a front door, a vanity, a feature wall, or an island. The trend palettes help here.
Benjamin Moore, Behr, Valspar and Glidden each publish a set of colours meant to sit beside the headline one, and Benjamin Moore’s includes Swiss Coffee OC-45 at an LRV of 81.91, which gives a light wall colour and a dark accent (Silhouette, at 10.18) from the same set.
Cabinets sit in between: they are a bigger commitment than a door, and our kitchen cabinet painting cost guide covers what that job involves.
Picked a colour, or down to two? Get a free, itemized written estimate for the rooms you want painted.