What are the hot decorating trends for 2014?
What’s hot – and not – in housing for 2014? Below is a look at some of the trends, including what colours and accessories the best homes will be sporting this year.
Colour
Purple is the colour of the year for 2014. Unless it’s blue. Or maybe yellow.
Radiant orchid is the big one, says the international colour authority Pantone Color Institute. It’s showing up everywhere from wallpaper to accessories. The institute touts purple as inducing creativity, confidence and other good things.
It complements olive, deeper hunter greens, turquoise, teal, light yellows, grey and other colours, the institute says.
Which is good, since Sico earlier this year earmarked yellow as a dominant colour, while blue continues to be high on the Color Marketing Group’s favourites list.
“We’re seeing blue in a lot of new fabrics,” says Catherine Pulcine of Decorating Den Interiors in Ottawa. “It’s tending to cobalt blue, which ties into orchid. We’ve been seeing pretty vibrant colours over the past few years.”
Hello, walls
Once the stuff of Grandma’s house, wallpaper has made a big comeback in recent years, whether for an accent wall in a powder or dining room or cosily surrounding you in a bedroom.
Geometric patterns and radiant orchid, sometimes in tandem, are among wallpaper trends.
Wallpaper “adds panache to a space, but you have to ask yourself if it’s something you’re going to get tired of,” Pulcine says. It’s an important question: The stuff can get pricey and isn’t always easy to remove.
Wallpaper, mouldings and wall tiles all add texture, says Suzanne Dimma, editor-in-chief of House & Home magazine. “It gives so much more character and an architectural feel than just the drywall you get in a builder house.”
So-called statement walls, including those with handpainted murals, number among the magazine’s top 10 trends for 2014. Also on the list: painting trim and walls the same bold colour to eliminate contrast and increase the sense of spaciousness.
Recipes for a trendy kitchen Dramatic and sophisticated, black countertops in granite and quartz are zipping up the kitchen hit parade, according to the online real estate information service Zillow. Marble and light-grey counters in the same room provide contrast.
Also hot, Zillow says: open shelves, glass-fronted cabinetry and dark colours such as copper and deep red (because they make rooms feel smaller, such colours work best as accents).
“Glass (in doors) is popular, but what’s very trendy is frosted glass,” designer Dominique Girard says. “Most people don’t want to display everything.”
She says high-gloss cabinetry in PVC and other manufactured materials as well as sleek, linear lines – discreet cabinet door handles are becoming de rigueur – are also trending.
“The biggest trend is larger refrigerators. Samsung supports the fresh food craze with its
T9000 model ($4,200): it has two fridge and two freezer doors, but one freezer compartment converts to a refrigerator on demand.
Stainless steel remains No. 1 in finishes, but Businessweek.com reports that appliance makers are softening that with lessaustere designs, matte finishes, rounded edges and furniturelike handles.
Furnishings and accessories
We’re increasingly viewing furniture as an investment rather than disposable fashion items, Dimma says. If there’s a trend at all, it’s toward traditional or modern classic styles that will work for years.
Pulcine says the industrial look is fading. “People like to add warmth to their space, particularly for us who have to deal with winter.” That warmth is showing up, for example, in rustic items such as tables with barnboard tops and black or grey-black iron bases.
Some accessories are taking their hint from what Dimma calls the Woodstock Revival. Sears’s spring 2014 home collection, for example, includes owl lanterns that look like they’re made of macramé, as well as cheery, folk-art inspired cushions and table napkins. Boomers should totally relate.
To that list, those in the know add sculptural light fixtures, animal prints such as crocodile and zebra, and furnishings and accessories inspired by classical Greece and Rome.
Other top trenders
Watch for hot new tiles in bathrooms and elsewhere. They include patterned floor tiles in keeping with the geometric patterns emblazoning everything from fabrics to wall hangings.
Persian rugs: “Hot, hot, hot!” House & Home’s Dimma says.
Fancified basements with curved bulkheads, mini brew pubs, luxurious home theatres.
Outside, look for resortstyle backyards inspired by Canadians’ love of winter jaunts to Mexico and Cuba, landscape designer Welwyn Wong says. We’ll be capturing a bit of that southern paradise feel by surrounding our pools with lush island plantings, little bridges and rock outcroppings, she says.
Source: Patrick Langston, The Ottawa Citizen
