What's New In Furniture Color Trends?
by Heather Worley

Take this quiz. Here are some adjectives and let's see if you can guess what they are a description of? charming, open, alluring, captivating, and vigorous. Would you have any idea that we are referring to home interior color trends for 2009?

 

I was hoping that you would guess those were the words used to describe me on a recent Friday night instead, those are just a few of the expressions to describe the Pantone's color 2009 forecast for home and interiors. The biggest color superstars? Red-Inspired Purples and a variety of Grays. Leatrice Elseman of Pantone gives us the following 8 color families in a year where we're looking to be more eco-friendly, to inspire more creativity, and to just to relax.

 

 

Wine Country is inspired by our "connections to the Earth" and is "hospitable", "bountiful",and "rustic" but refined. The colors include taupe, olive, grapevine green, lavender gray, sky blue, and lusty wines


Honesty is inspired by our true desire to "go green", to be more eco-friendly. The colors of this repurposing movement include unbleached white, tender greens, clouded corals, toasty warm tans, cool grey, and velvety Red rose.


Discerning Tastes is where "modernity marries tradition" and we re-style our homes with these time-honored, tasteful colors, such as classic crystal, antique white, caviar black, red mahogany, champagne beige, metallic silver and gold, and orchid.

Reveries takes us back and lets us wax "nostalgic" with these dreamy colors like misted rose, flowering lilac, fragrant lavender, iris blue, rosy mauve, vibrant purple, and rich browns.

Wanderings takes us on a journey through our imaginations and captivates us with these Bohemian colors: dusty tones of rose, Dijon like yellow, deepened taupe, mineral blue, Misted Gray, rich gold, and scarlet red.

Solar Energy capitalizes on our belief in the "dynamic power inherent in the sun". Heat it up with bright orange, radiating golds, green based yellows, mauve purplish wine, fuscia red, electric blue, and ashy gray

Breathe Easy helps us go with the flow. Achieve serenity and true relaxation with these cool tones of pure bright white, deep ocean blue, garden green, vegetal yellow green, and blue purple.

Animate, inspired by the world of Japanese art of anime, is full of ?vitality and creativity.? Show your enthusiasm and uniqueness with these colors: brilliant red, vibrant blues, mint, chartreuse, light apricot, quiet green, and deepened berry.


Seeing how these colors play out in our homes is fun and exciting. Don?t be limited to one palette. Maybe I?ll try to Breathe Easy in my bedroom, reflect some Solar Energy in my bathroom, Animate my kids? rooms while inspiring Wanderings in my living room and Honesty in my kitchen and dining room spaces. So, let?s see ? white bedroom furniture for me, maybe Green Ash bedroom furniture for the kids with a few Banana pieces thrown in. . . Oh, honey, we have some new projects . . .

To see more of these exciting color trends, check out Leatrice Elseman's color video on Amazon.

On the wood finishes side, the trend seekers are seeing a downward trend of the espressos and other darker hues, and medium shades will be the new rage. See Highpoint's comments on trends for wood furniture finishes.

Consider using these wood stain, dye, and milk paint shades from General Finishes to fit in with the color trends for 2009:

Water Based Furrniture Dye Stains: Designed for professional furniture finishing applications, these unique, water based, ultra penetrating stains designed to work like solvent-based stains. The deep rich tones enhance the wood grain and produce vibrant colors especially on woods like cherry, walnut and maple. Dye stains can also be used as a toner when mixed with water based topcoats.

Amber Light Brown Cinnamon Orange Yellow Green Blue


Furniture Paints in Custom Colors: Available in any custom color and, General Finishes Furniture Milk Paints are acrylic based liquid paints for use over wood. They utilize new interior/exterior furniture-grade technology and are formulated for both indoor and outdoor projects.