We all have our preferences when it comes to interior paint colour, but one thing is becoming clear: both professional decorators and do-it-yourselfers are going for serious colour.
Canadians are starting to embrace colour as never before, notes Frank Turco, a Home Depot spokesman on trends.
Turco reports that not only are walls, floors, ceilings and other surfaces getting unusual and even wild colours, painters are adding stripes to stair risers, for instance, or removing the doors on storage units, then painting the interior a brilliant hue to just make that cabinet box pop.
Nevertheless, neutral colours remain the biggest sellers in interior paints. According to Nancy Bollefer, the Toronto-based spokeswoman for U.S.-made Behr paints, shades of beige, taupe and grey are the first choice of Canadian consumers.
Here on the West Coast, we tend to seek expressions of warmth in our home interiors, says a local member of the Color Marketing Group, a worldwide organization that forecasts colour trends in paint. Kevin Skelly, also marketing manager for Surrey-based Cloverdale Paint Inc., says the most sought-after interior paint colours in B.C. are on the warm side of the colour wheel -- with the browns, beiges, golds, oranges and 'Pacific pinks' particularly popular.
Skelly says warmer, redder tones are a natural complement to the abundant green of our outdoors. But he also cites a trend to increasing boldness, as well as subtlety, in our choice of paint colour.
Colours have been neutralized for years, but now we're seeing brighter colours, Skelly says. Especially in the reds, but red is giving way to the oranges, which are inspired by wood tones. Grey and neutral browns continue to be strong, and the greys are becoming more complex.
All major paint suppliers promote groupings of colours or perceived trends for our edification.
For example, Benjamin Moore is promoting an Envision colour package, in which a palette called simple indulgences features a bedroom of sensuous whites, beiges and violets.
Vancouver interior decorator Lois North favours Benjamin Moore paints, along with those of Farrow & Ball, a British firm that specializes in traditional wallpapers and paints with considerable depth of colour.
I'm looking for trueness in colour, North says in her westside living room which is painted several shades of burnt orange.
The colours that are most rich are made up of many colours, not just two or three. It's a whole science.
At the Home Depot on Terminal Avenue, a Martha Stewart Living line of paints is available in 280 colours.
They are both for interiors and exteriors.
It's a beautiful palette, very designer-focused, says Turco of hues that include innovative blues and greens (greens, maybe with an infusion of yellow, are popular locally, insists North), a wide range of purples and mauves, and no fewer than 20 greys, including Nimbus Cloud and Schoolhouse Slate.
Pre-tinted testers of the line are available, or store staff will prepare a custom tinting of selected shades.
Martha Stewart Living also supplies swatches or chips in which the two ends of the card fold back to suggest complementary shades for ceiling and trim.
And all the paint manufacturers' websites are packed with options and directions. In the case of behr.com, you can even upload photos of spaces-to-be-painted and then apply some sample coats.
-- Postmedia News
