The changing seasons are my favourite time of the year. Driving through the streets and walking in the park, I can’t help but notice the bursts of colour in the landscape, and it puts a broad smile on my face as I discover new variations of colour. Autumn signifies the end of the warm balmy days, as the air turns crisp, the daylight hours become shorter and we start to take our living and entertaining more indoors.
Shaynna Blaze on Creating Warmth in a Room
Autumn may bring a cool change, but it balances this with the visual warmth on the trees and the ground as they fill with falling leaves of bold russet, reds and golden hues of yellow, orange and brown. This palette is what makes this time of year so visually rich, and using these colours in your home turn your interior into a welcome relief from the cold outside.
Taking the lead from the leaves gives you the perfect inspiration of colours to put on your walls and instantly change your room. In the past twelve months we have seen the return of bold colours in the home through pops of colour in art and cushions, and finally this is now creeping onto our walls too. The biggest fear of putting striking splashes of colour on the walls has come from the fear of a ‘feature wall’ dating our homes as it did in the 90’s. Adding colour now is more about painting two adjoining walls or enveloping the whole room in colour.
The key to making this work is to keep neutral tones in your large pieces of furniture, such as couches and rugs, to allow you to play and experiment with colour on the walls. Neutral tones in fabrics, leathers and timber gives your interior a solid foundation on which to build layers of colour in the room.
When introducing large areas of colour, a good place to start is the bedroom or a sitting room. These are rooms that you can close the door to, and keep the colour contained. Using a bold red, such as Taubmans Endure Red Alert, in a bedroom signifies passion, but it also creates a sense of intimacy in a large room. If you have a bedroom suite with enough room for some chairs or even a dressing table, a deep red with dark timbers or rattan in the furniture will be warm and dramatic. By using dark timbers you are not creating a stark contrast, so it will feel more serene than you would imagine.
Yellow has been a very ‘on trend’ colour recently and it still is relevant to interiors schemes now. As the temperatures lower, the vibrancy of the yellow you use should tone down. Look for yellows that have a depth to them, such as Taubmans Endure Golden Orb, as it takes the edge off what we tend to call a ‘sunny yellow’.
Adding colour to your walls in the cooler months brings a new energy to your interiors. When you walk through the front door to your home, away from the cool winds and grey skies you want to feel more elevated and energised. Adding rich Autumn colours to your walls is a simple and cost-effective way to achieve this.
By Shaynna Blaze Taubmans Brand Ambassador and Creative Director, Selling Houses Australia Presenter, and The Block judge
For more information, please visit www.taubmans.com.au
