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FeedColor My World
Nothing else unifies a design so well—or brings a vintage property up to date so quickly.
(page 4 of 4)
Flying Colors
No more neutral. When it comes to interior paints, roll with rich, vibrant colors.
Want to see the hottest colors in interior paint? Stick your head in the closet. “Home follows fashion,” says Carol Gain of Mammele’s Paints and Coatings in Wilmington. “The colors in fashion right now will be the hot colors several years down the road.”
Voila. The chocolate and sky blue combo of your Vera Bradley purse is now sprucing up your parlor.
Gain reports that, locally, this year’s hot hues are orange, coral and turquoise. “A warm, Mediterranean type of feel is where everybody wants to go,” she says. “Yellows and reds are sunshine warm colors. Turquoise cools it down a bit.”
Byron McElderry of B. Frank Shinn’s Paint Co. in Wilmington, has noticed customers abandoning traditional neutrals. Browns, greens, yellows, mocha, even gray, are the trendiest of tints, McElderry says. Reds lean toward brown, rust and cinnamon.
He links the color revolution to a sagging real estate market. “Up until the past year or so, people were selling every two years,” he says. “Realtors would have them paint everything neutral so it would sell faster. Now, people are fixing their houses up to look like model homes.”
Still, Gain cautions that color is truly in the eye of the beholder. “Color is an emotional thing,” she says. “I tell people to work with what makes them comfortable. A trend isn’t any good if it doesn’t work for you.”
Incorporating the latest, greatest shades into your home may require patience. “Color is determined by furniture and carpeting,” she says. “It can take several years to work the hot colors into your house.”
McElderry says why wait. “Don’t be afraid of color,” he says. “Come on with it.” —Drew Ostroski
