Make your accessories count

If you're hesitant about the latest colour trends when it comes to large pieces of furniture or walls, go wild by purchasing several new accessories.  It goes without saying that you have to find a new home for the ones you are replacing.

My trusted friends when I want to turn things up a notch are pillows and painted furniture because you can  change your look and keep the same objects (of course it helps if you know how to sew). Moving artwork from room to room is a close second in low cost updates in your home.

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Consider using brightly coloured accents with neutral walls. Some of my favourite Benjamin Moore go - to colours for walls are: 

 Elephant Tusk  OC 8

Natural Linen CC 90

 Stone Hearth CC 490

Revere Pewter HC 172

Now that we have ideas for a neutral backdrop, the sky's the limit for accents. Choose from reds, fuchsias, purples, sapphire blue, yellow greens ,  turquoise, corals or soft oranges. Oranges are particularly prevalent in design forecasts for 2011.  Choose vases, pillows, baskets, candles, throws, bowls,  lamps, mats/rugs, draperies or anything else that you can think of .

Garrison Hullinger Interior Design Inc.

Red works beautifully in this vignette .  I particularly like the geometric step pattern in the front pillow that is backed by a solid colour. This arrangement makes the pattern even more obvious.  Your eye naturally moves to the large red vase and then tracks to the subtle hints of red in the art work. Always think in threes of varying proportions  when you are setting up a vignette of this type. The same is true  when you create a  composition in visual art.  I jokingly call this approach The Three Bears -Papa Bear, Mama Bear and Baby Bear to indicate the need for varying proportions of the same colour. 

Silvia Garcia Interiores

Solids, stripes and florals backed by a padded headboard in red  What a lovely burst of colour energy for a room.  I'm assuming the art work over the bed is fabric stretched over a frame.  It's time to get out the sewing machine and staple gun. 

Marie Burgos Design

The beautiful blue in the rug, pillows and bowl are allocated in varying amounts of blue which add interest and move your eye around. 

 Traditional Home

Blue and orange are a hot, hot  combination this year. It keeps coming up in every magazine I look at.  Layering is the name of the game in this room.  You could achieve the look of layered colour and pattern on the mirror by adding a backing of MDF to the mirror which you would paint.  Another suggestion is to paint  an orange rectangle on the wall and then mounting the mirror on top of it.

I love using two colours of side panels because it allows you  to easily change the accent colour down the road.  There are many good quality ready made panels that are not too expensive.  For those of you who don't  require  full length draperies (96 inches), you will have fabric left over when you hem to the required length.  This material in turn can be used  to make accent pillows.

Traditional Home

 Massed together over a table these colourful graphic designs  provide quite a focal point.

Traditional Home 

 Finding lamps that have vibrant colours is usually a chore where I live.  Sometimes buying a colourful lamp can be limiting but  you can  make it work for you.  My favourite trick is to move a lamp from one room to another as your colour scheme changes. Photos of my rooms over the last ten years suggest a  bad case of" have lamp will travel". I'm showing my age with that reference!

Cristi Holcombe

 The rug makes this room, but I'm sure it isn't an inexpensive item! When accessorizing your can go overboard with too many small hits of the same colour that reminds me of a scattering of snow. Remember to variety in proportions. 

Jennifer Brouwer

I can't get enough of this room.  Yellow, vibrant and beautiful, is a wonderful accent in this predominantly white and gray room. I like the way it is used sparingly but it does the trick.  

   spaces design

Do you have favourite ways to accessorize? 

Think vintage wine

No, not that kind!   I Googled vintage wine and didn't get what I expected. Isn't everything about colour?  To anyone familiar with Benjamin Moore Paints ,Vintage Wine  2116-20 is the colour of the year for 2011. 

Out of all the colours in the Benjamin Moore palette,  how and why was Vintage Wine singled out as "the" colour for 2011?  Benjamin Moore's team of experts observe the world looking for inspiration and trends.   Sonu Mathew, senior interior designer at Benjamin Moore and blogger, notes that the team is always looking two years ahead.  That means that the colour of year for 2011 was chosen in 2009! The key concept for 2011 is balance -  buying into our efforts to find  calming influences  in a hectic, disorderly world. As Sonu puts it "Remember that 2011 is all about balance- work/play, nostalgia/future state, new purpose/old materials". There's no doubt Vintage Wine is a calming colour that is both comfortable and luxurious at the same time. 

What would Vintage Wine look like in our homes?

Trends in colour are just that - trends or patterns to be considered.  Does it mean we should repaint walls a deep brownish purple?  Perhaps not. If you like a colour there's a continuum of possibilities for its use from over the top to the merest hint of it.

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This is my over the top application of a vintage wine colour.  I'm practical to the core and my personal design instinct for my  home is casual contemporary with lots of light colours, but  I love to contemplate extremes even when I know I could never live with  them .  This kitchen fills all my fantasy needs. I love its depth of colour and sleek lines, but I couldn't live with it for twenty years. That's my criteria when choosing hard surfaces or built ins in my home.

This room is featured in Benjamin Moore's Envision 2011 brochure. The colour scheme is from  the Soulful palette referencing the global balance achieved through communication technology- what was once foreign is now familiar.  On the style front, these beliefs are evident in the  "ethnic glam" trend characterized by  pattern on pattern, map motifs and  arts and crafts from different cultures, etc. 

Design Hint: This is not a look for every room. Don't try this application unless you have lots of architectural details and a high ceiling.

This is a good way to use a dark colour.  You aren't limiting yourself to several years of looking at 2011's trend.  If you want to change it to something else you'll need only several hours of work and a quart of paint. I love the way the dark draws you down the hallway into the main part of the house. I'm not a fond lover of accent walls everywhere, but this works.

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 Design Hint: Consider using a strong colour as a backdrop behind a light coloured  bed or sofa.  It allows you to keep your remaining walls light and  include a strong vertical line in rooms where horizontal lines dominate. It is also a great way to integrate dark and light furniture into a cohesive design. 

 

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This colour, similar to Vintage Wine, is Benjamin Moore AF 650 Caponata .  It provides a great backdrop for the light  furniture and black chairs.  Without the amount of creamy white used here, this would  have been a dark, dingy room.

Design hint: Use dark colour on walls to provide contrast with  light furniture pieces. This application allows you to highlight your furniture while still controlling your  light colour balance.  My preferences are showing! Dark rooms and dark furniture depress me.

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 This very sleek, modern room uses a purple green scheme as a backdrop for creamy white. I like the way that the vintage wine colour is used modestly as an accent. 

Design Hint: Are you tired of your wood grain entertainment unit? A current trend in decorating is re- purposing furniture. You many not own built ins that look like this, but you can achieve the look  with a similar paint combination. 

 

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Just because I love the table and the sparseness of the room.... The sofa, plush and plum, is the luxurious item in the room.

Design Hint: Every room should have one luxurious item in it. Size doesn't count.

Sarah Richardson via Decor Pad

Design Hint: If you don't want to commit to design trends in a big way, accessorize with them. Pillows make great trend statements.  Consider recovering them when you want to nod toward the next colour trend. As always the magic colour, white allows you to do so much.

 

This is my idea of a luxury item for my kitchen. Le Creuset’s gorgeous enamelled pots, are the ultimate in my mind, but only in my dreams so far. I have a perfectly good set of stainless steel pots.  There's always the dream list....

What are your thoughts on using trend colours?

Think pink in 2011

For more than a decade, Pantone's Colour of the Year declarations have influenced product development and purchasing decisions in multiple industries including home  design.  This year's Pantone colour is.....

Honeysuckle 

Pantone Colour Institute Executive Director Leatrice Eiseman says, "In times of stress, we need something to lift our spirits. Honeysuckle is a captivating, stimulating colour that gets the adrenaline going-- perfect to ward off the blues."  Yes indeed, Honeysuckle is that kind of pink, but there are many  tints and shade of pink that are options in decor.Perhaps there's one for you.

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Vibrant all the way.  You couldn't help but feel upbeat in this room.  Some rooms have so much colour energy they are difficult places to relax.  Personally, I love a room that soothes and this space would not be my first choice.  How about you? 

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A subtle and understated pink creeps quietly into this decor and settles in place. It produces a quiet, relaxed environment that calls you to curl up with a nice book.

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Another quiet pink combination that  works well for  relaxation.  The pink/ brown combination is one of my favourites and recently it is a popular  colour scheme for children's rooms. 

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Anything with gray is bound to be a favourite with me. I love the way grays are  the supporting actors in a room , letting other colours do their thing.  Gray is the new neutral, but it has been my neutral since the mid 80"s

tineke triggs

Orange and pink are a somewhat unlikely pair, but they work well together especially when one dominates. 

 

Oatmeal and pink  which is moving subtly toward coral  makes a fantastic duo in this Sarah Richardson design. 

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Yellow is another colour that you don't often see paired with pink, but it is one of my favourite combinations. The addition of orange makes this an energetic combo without being too much so because of the light colour on the walls. If I could make one change in this room,  I would paint  the walls a more neutral colour.

 tineke triggs

I love the chairs.  Enough said. 

 Ventana Construction LLC

This room combines two 2011 trends, honeysuckle and pattern.
 
What's your tolerance level for pink in decor?

Consider pattern in 2011

 The latest edition of Style at Home and most design forecasts proclaim that what you need for your home this year is pattern.   There's no limit to the ways pattern can be added to a room. Where you place it and how subtle or bold the  pattern choice will  dictate your unique look.

Walls 

 There are many ways to add pattern to your walls. 

   
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This graphically  designed wallpaper  in two colours is the perfect backdrop to an otherwise white decor. It adds interest without being overwhelming.

 Trellis patterns seem to be popping up everywhere. It's a little busy for me but it has it adherents.

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Metal wall art is a great way to add subtle texture and pattern to a room.   
 

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There are many kinds of appliques you can buy for walls or you can make your own from contact paper. 

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Pillows

Pillows never lose favour as a way to bring pattern into your decor. Ikea offers a range of inexpensive cushions with ethnic influences.

Layered bedding is also a strong trend with mixed patterns used both boldly and subtly.

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Furniture

Choosing one piece of furniture  to  designate a star in a room is another great way to add pattern.  If you choose this route, keep the pattern in check  by painting the walls  a shade that is  slightly darker or slightly lighter than your fabric. Sometimes the pattern lies quietly and just adds subtle interest.

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This stool might be small but the pattern helps it to hold its own in this room.  The wall display is a pattern in its own right.  Tobi Fairley's love of unusual colour schemes is in full swing here. 

When choosing furniture how much pattern is too much for you?  

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Floors 

 

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 And don't forget the floor.

But sometimes things for the floor can be found in other places....  This is a very effective use of an area rug to create subtle colour and textural variation.  The pattern works well with the floral on the chair.

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Personal preferences

Sometimes you can overuse  a pattern and produce a room that is more static than interesting. 

This design could do with an injection of a different pattern in my opinion. Perhaps the intent of the designer was to create a more static look by repeating the same pattern in a number of places.  I admit it is a busy pattern that does have a quiet feel to it. Once again the use of white produces its magic.

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The amount of pattern that a person can live with is a very individual thing.  This room has pattern used in multiple ways.  While there's too much going on for my personal taste, my taste is mine, yours will probably differ.  

The room below also has a range of patterns, but the overall effect is quieter and more put together. 

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What's your pattern preference?