Color spec
| Brand | Benjamin Moore |
| Name | Backwoods |
| SKU | 469 |
| Hex | #A8AB87 |
| RGB | 168, 171, 135 |
| HSL | 65°, 18%, 60% |
| LRV | 35 |
| Undertone | warm yellow tone |
| Sheens | interior walls eggshell · exterior siding satin · trim and shutters semi-gloss |
| Family | Green |
Backwoods is not a color anyone found on a mood board. It is a plain-numbered Benjamin Moore workhorse — 469, no collection name, no launch campaign — a yellow-green grayed down until it sits somewhere between khaki, olive and green depending on the light. Give it real daylight, wood, and iron hardware and it looks deliberate and earthy, like something a good architect specified and never had to defend. Give it a dim room or a stark modern build and it looks unsure of what it is.
What Color Is Backwoods, Really?
Backwoods is a yellow-green with the blue pulled almost all the way out — the hex works out to roughly equal red and green with blue trailing well behind, which is the recipe for khaki. That is the honest way to describe it: not a clean sage, not an olive drab, but a color that sits in the overlap between green and tan and lets the room around it decide which way it leans. Benjamin Moore files it in the green family, and on the chip that reads true. On four walls in mixed light it can drift toward brown before it drifts toward green.
At LRV 35 it is a genuine mid-tone, close in depth to Sherwin-Williams Evergreen Fog (LRV 30) but noticeably warmer — Evergreen Fog leans grey-sage, Backwoods leans khaki-olive. That depth means it holds its color in a bright room the way a pale sage never could, but it also means a dim room has nowhere to hide: the green either shows up or the wall goes flat and drab.
Undertone in one line: warm yellow-green, khaki more than emerald, never blue-green. If your sample reads tan or brown, that is warm incandescent light or warm wood pulling it that direction — not a defect. If it reads dull and lifeless, that is cool cloudy daylight with nothing warm in the room to answer it.
Where It Shines
This is a color for houses and rooms with texture to lean on — real wood, stone, iron, cedar shake — not glossy modern surfaces. Outside, it is a classic cabin and lodge exterior color: full daylight brings out the green, and against actual trees and stone it reads as though the house grew there rather than got painted. Inside, it is at its best in a den, office or mudroom with walnut furniture, black iron hardware and a warm reading lamp — the kind of room that is supposed to feel a little worn-in.
Where It Fails — the Honest Part
Backwoods rarely fails on its own merits — it fails when the room or the light asks it to be a different color than it is. Three situations account for almost every disappointed review, and all three are predictable before the first coat goes on.
A dim room with no warm light. Cool, overcast daylight with no lamp to answer it drains the yellow out and leaves a flat, muddy olive-drab — army green instead of anything sophisticated. This color needs at least one warm light source in the room after dark; if the room is dim and stays dim, this is not your green.
You wanted an unmistakable green. Because the undertone is khaki-first, warm incandescent light and warm wood floors can pull Backwoods closer to tan or olive-brown than to green — beautiful, but a letdown if you pictured something as clearly green as Saybrook Sage or Evergreen Fog. If the room needs to read "green" from across the yard, pick one of those instead.
A stark, modern build. Against white quartz, chrome and glossy black steel, the cabin-coded warmth of Backwoods can read camo or dated rather than sophisticated — it wants texture (wood grain, stone, wrought iron), not slick modern finishes. In a minimalist build with cool hard surfaces, choose a cooler, flatter green or skip green altogether.
Room by Room
Exterior / cabin siding — its best job
Full daylight reads it as a grounded, believable green against real trees and stone. Satin on siding, semi-gloss on shutters and the front door; pair with a warm white or charcoal trim so the house doesn't disappear into the treeline.
Den or home office — yes
Low, warm light is this color's natural habitat. With walnut shelving and a brass or iron lamp it reads expensive and lived-in rather than trendy. Eggshell holds up to daily wear.
Kitchen island or cabinetry — yes, in doses
An island or a run of lower cabinets in Backwoods under white or cream upper cabinets is a confident, non-trendy move, especially with walnut open shelving and brass pulls. A full kitchen of it is a bigger bet — sample the exact cabinet light before committing.
Mudroom — yes
Hides scuffs, boot marks and dog-nose smudges better than a pale color, and the earthy tone suits a room that is supposed to look a little used. Satin or eggshell for wipeability.
Open-plan living room — depends
Beautiful as an anchor wall or built-in with a neutral like Pashmina or Revere Pewter carrying the rest of the plan; risky as the wall-to-wall color in a bright, all-white-trim open plan, where it can look muddier than intended next to crisp white.
Bathroom — rarely
Small, often-dim, often cool-lit rooms are exactly the situation this color struggles with. If the bathroom has real daylight and warm fixtures, it can work on a vanity; otherwise pick something less light-dependent.
The Scorecard
What it gets right
- +Genuine, grounded green-khaki that avoids looking like a paint-store green
- +Holds its color in real daylight — LRV 35 is deep enough to not wash out
- +Excellent with walnut, cedar, wrought iron and brass
- +A quiet, unglamorous workhorse — not chasing a trend that will date it
- +Hides scuffs and dirt better than a pale sage or a bright green
Where it struggles
- −Goes flat, muddy olive-drab in dim rooms with no warm light
- −Can read tan or brown rather than green under warm bulbs
- −Fights stark modern builds — white quartz, chrome, glossy black
- −Less overtly "green" than trend sages, which disappoints some buyers
Light by Light
Most complaints about Backwoods are a light mismatch. Upload a photo of your actual room and see it on your walls — then ask for the same wall in north light or evening lamps before you buy a single sample.
TEST IT IN YOUR LIGHT →Backwoods vs the Colors You're Also Considering
Every Backwoods sample board has the same rivals on it. The numbers show the real lightness gap — then it comes down to which risk you would rather live with.
Sherwin-Williams Majolica Green SW 13 at #AEB08F and LRV 42 is the nearest cross-brand neighbor, with a deltaE of 1.86. That is visually identical in normal room light, though its higher LRV means it gives back a little more light on a large wall. Behr Mountain Sage PMD-36 at LRV 38 and deltaE 2.42 is very close and worth sampling first, since it is a shade cooler.
Clare Extra Virgin at LRV 35 matches Backwoods exactly on lightness with a deltaE of 2.81, so the difference there is hue rather than depth. Valspar Green Garlands 5007-3C at LRV 40.3 and deltaE 3.11 falls in the same band, close but not interchangeable.
Farther out, Dunn-Edwards Stuffed Olive DE5529 at LRV 37 and deltaE 3.54 and Farrow and Ball Stone White No. 11 at LRV 41 and deltaE 4.06 are close but visibly different side by side, with Stone White reading noticeably lighter and softer.
Need It From Another Brand?
Any paint counter can custom-tint Benjamin Moore 469 directly — but if you would rather stay in one brand's own deck, these are the closest stock matches:
Similar Benjamin Moore colors
closest in the Benjamin Moore deckThe nearest shades to Backwoods within Benjamin Moore's own range, ranked by perceptual color distance — useful when you want the same look a touch lighter, darker, or warmer.
Backwoods Coordinating Colors
The rule for coordinating with Backwoods: warm whites and warm neutrals to soften it, real wood and dark iron to ground it, and nothing icy or glossy nearby. It shares a depth range with several muted greens and greiges in the deck, so it layers easily instead of having to carry a room alone:
The Story Behind a Plain-Numbered Green
Backwoods carries a bare number — 469 — not a curated collection name, no Color of the Year campaign, no viral design moment. That is not a knock on the color; it is a fact about how Benjamin Moore's deck works. Alongside every Aura and Ben launch with a marketing push behind it, there are hundreds of numbered colors that have sat quietly available for decades because painters and architects keep specifying them, not because anyone promoted them.
That is the honest category Backwoods belongs to: a workhorse, not a headliner. Its name points at exactly the use case it earns its keep in — cabins, lodges, rooms with real wood and stone — and it does that job well without needing a trend cycle to justify it. If you came looking for a famous color with a story, this is not it; if you came looking for a dependable earthy green for a specific kind of room, it is exactly that.
Backwoods With Wood Tones and Floors
Because Backwoods is yellow-green rather than blue-green, it sits close enough to warm wood on the color wheel that the two rarely fight — walnut, cedar, and mid-tone oak all read as natural company rather than a clash. The risk with wood floors is not conflict, it is sameness: a very warm, very yellow room (honey oak everywhere, no break) can make the wall and the floor blur into one undifferentiated warm zone with no contrast to anchor the eye.
The fix is simple and doesn't require repainting: a warm white trim, a darker wood accent, or one true near-black (Wrought Iron, Kendall Charcoal) gives the room the contrast point it needs. The color's actual complement on the wheel is red-violet — a plum door or a burgundy accent is the genuine opposite-color move, useful if a room ever feels flat and needs real contrast rather than more warmth.
Three Ready Palettes Built on Backwoods
A color is never alone on the wall — these are complete combinations in the 60-30-10 pattern, with the reason each one holds together.
A warm white trim keeps the siding from reading muddy against real daylight, and Kendall Charcoal on the shutters and door supplies the one dark note that makes the whole facade look intentional instead of blended-into-the-woods by accident.
TRY THIS PALETTE →Swiss Coffee keeps the trim soft rather than stark, which is what this khaki-green needs to avoid looking dingy, and Wrought Iron on built-ins gives the room the near-black anchor that makes the whole scheme feel curated, not accidental.
TRY THIS PALETTE →Revere Pewter carries the open plan without competing, White Dove keeps the uppers light and the room from feeling heavy, and the island gets to be the one confident, earthy note in the room instead of the whole kitchen's gamble.
TRY THIS PALETTE →Accessibility (WCAG contrast)
WCAG 2.1: AA = 4.5:1 normal text · AA Large = 3:1 large text · AAA = 7:1 normal text.
The Questions Everyone Asks
Is Backwoods green or brown?
Green, technically — Benjamin Moore files it in the green family and the undertone is yellow-green, not brown. But it is a khaki-leaning green, so in warm light or against warm wood it can read closer to tan-olive than to a clean green. If you want a color that reads unmistakably green in every light, look at Saybrook Sage or Evergreen Fog instead.
What trim white goes with Backwoods?
A warm white, not a stark cool one. White Dove or Swiss Coffee keep the trim soft and let the khaki-green read intentional; an icy blue-white trim makes it look dingy by comparison. Semi-gloss on the trim, eggshell or satin on the walls.
Does Backwoods work as an exterior color?
Yes — it's one of its best jobs. Full outdoor daylight brings the green forward, and against actual trees and stone the house reads as though it belongs on the lot. Give it a warm white or charcoal trim so the facade doesn't visually merge into the landscape behind it.
Is it good for kitchen cabinets or an island?
Yes, especially in doses — an island or a run of lower cabinets under white uppers is a confident, non-trendy choice, particularly with walnut open shelving and brass hardware. A full kitchen of it is a bigger commitment; sample it under your actual cabinet lighting before deciding.
What wood tones pair best with Backwoods?
Walnut, cedar and other mid-to-dark warm woods are its best company — they share the same earthy register and neither one fights the other. Very pale, blond wood can look slightly washed-out next to it; it wants some depth in the wood to match its own.
Will Backwoods look dated?
It carries a real risk of reading as "hunting lodge" in the wrong house — a stark modern build with white quartz and chrome is where that risk shows up. In a house with real wood, stone or iron to lean on, it reads as a grounded, classic green rather than a trend, and it has no viral moment behind it to fade from.
Will It Work in YOUR Room?
No page can promise how Backwoods behaves in your light. Upload a photo and see it on your own walls in seconds — before you spend a cent on samples.
TRY BACKWOODS ON YOUR ROOM →
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