Yellows, blues are on the rise in home decor

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By Jennifer Forker
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

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Step aside, orange. It's yellow's turn to shine.

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Hemnes linen yellow cabinet.

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A wall painted with Benjamin Moore’s Cork 2153-40 and Cape Hatteras Sand AC-34, part of the 2008 Color Trends collections.

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The Revol Yellow Porcelain Chicken Roasting Dish.

The last few years have seen greens and oranges in the home decor spotlight, but that's about to change, as the primary colours blue and yellow muscle back into the forefront. "Orange has started to run its course," says Jack Bredenfoerder, president of Color Marketing Group, an international association of colour design professionals.

As in the fashion world, with its punch of yellow in bangles, bags and high heels, the colour often described as "sunny" and "energetic" is returning as a primary accent colour in home design.

What we wear often determines how we decorate. "It's in fashion now, then in our homes," says Bredenfoerder.

The yellow he sees stepping off the runways is the shade's calmer tones, and combined with neutral colours. Yellow is especially attractive as an accent for whites, greys and black, although Bredenfoerder warns that too much black with yellow can make a jarring contrast.

Combining yellow with grey can create an air of sophistication.

Yellow has long been an accent colour for blue, which is overtaking green as a principal colour in the home. Bredenfoerder, who is design director in the Cincinnati office of Landor Associates, a design and branding firm, advises steering clear of traditional blues, which are ubiquitous, and looking for something new along the lines of an "intense, bright, ultramarine-type blue."

With the changing seasons, now is the perfect time to think yellow, according to Sonu Mathew, an interior designer and senior manager of commercial and residential design with the paint company Benjamin Moore.

"You can use yellow as a bridge from the cooler colours of summer to the warmer colours of fall," she says.

Give a room some punch with a yellow bowl, throw pillows, a slipcover or a bedspread. Or make it as simple as a bouquet of fresh yellow flowers. Mathew even advises painting ceilings with a hint of yellow to create warmth in the room.

But she warns that yellow can be a particularly difficult colour to navigate. "It's just a hard colour for our eyes to process," she says.

As an accent colour, yellow brightens a room, but a little goes a long way. The safest yellows are the creamy, calmer ones. Too much of a cheerful yellow can prove annoying.