February 10th, 2021 | Style And Design
Play With Colour But Keep It Neutral – Colours Of The Year 2021
‘Illuminating’ yellow may be the colour of the year but use it for inspiration.
A new year often brings with it a sense of hope and a desire to change your surroundings. Given the amount of time we’ve all spent in our homes during the last year, it may be an excellent time to liven things up. Why not find inspiration from a new colour scheme as we enter a period of optimism and renewal.
Are you also dreaming of the bright yellow sun of a southern beach on the Mediterranean? So too, it seems, is Benjamin Moore, which has declared Aegean Teal and other sun baked hues as part of its Colour Trends 2021. The 12 colours in the palette range from rosy peach to grey cashmere and a range of warm tones in between and will make you think of a lazy day in the sand.
As we continue to seek out the outdoors to energize away from work, it’s natural that embracing earth tones for our homes will also be a trend for the year ahead. The annual Pantone colour of the year is always the inspiration for fashion and design, and for 2021 two colours were announced in late December — Ultimate Gray and Illuminating — a combination of familiar, trustworthy gray and the bright yellow of lemon. In promoting the colours, Pantone said they were “both enduring and uplifting.” Since 1963, Pantone has been the global authority on colour inspiration. So, while Fixr.com predicted last year that gray was on the way out, cool neutrals, it seems, are almost always in style.
Generally, the rule for paint colours that will sell your home is to keep light and neutral tones throughout a home, but pops of colour can also inspire new home buyers to see themselves in the space. Fortunately, Pantone’s Ultimate Gray fits this requirement.
At first glance, you may not immediately think of gray and yellow as tones you’d like to introduce into your personal space, but when you start to play with the colours and see how they can be used with other tones, you will likely change your mind. “Practical and rock-solid but at the same time, warming and optimistic” is how Pantone describes its interpretation of the two colours.
The idea is to inspire an injection of these colours into various aspects of your life, whether fashion or home décor. An accent pillow can bring the warmth of the yellow into your living room, or you could choose to apply the gray to an accent wall, introducing practicality that can play with just about any other combination of colours.
To see how the gray and the yellow can work in your home, check out the gallery of concepts put together by HGTV in which even a yellow shawl hanging on a coat rack can introduce a pop of happy yellow into a room, or a rug with both tones can liven up floor space. Cut flowers, planters and other accent pieces are different ways to introduce popular new colours into your home and give it an instant upgrade.
You can also think about adding colour not only in terms of more significant projects like paint, tile or wallpaper but also as luxury upgrades to just about any room, such as lush bath towels, a new high-thread-count sheet set or drapes. It’s less of a commitment and lets you try out a colour without risking too much. If you’re more adventurous, try a statement piece of furniture such as a home office desk, chair or kitchen appliances, as featured in Veranda.com.
If you want to try applying bolder colours on a grander scale, consider consulting with a designer who can help you scale your vision to other rooms in the house and think how it will work with the flow of different colours you already have.
So, if you’re remodelling a room for a new home office, gym or family room, consider some of the inspiring colours for 2021.
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