It's that time of the year! Summer is over. It's time for cosy clothes, lying in bed and listening to the rain and everything...EVERYTHING has to be Pumpkin-spiced or Gingerbread-themed! It's Autumn, and we love it.
Autumn colours are, frankly, the best colours to work with. With our temperate and unpredictable climate, it's never a good idea to get too enthusiastic with summer colours like bright orange, sky blue and sunshine yellow, nor is it smart to go wild with extravagant tropical textures, unless it's contrasted with rustic, dark wooden furniture. Autumn colours are burnt oranges, forest greens, ochres/mustards and coffee brown - all of which work really well with a whole range of furniture and bring warmth and comfort in abundance. We're always looking for ways to bring new ideas to our homes, so we've outlined some great ways to bring an Autumn colour palette to your home no matter the size, architectural style, location or budget. The secret is that none of those things matter when it comes to colour but please keep reading our blog post anyway as you will get some great ideas for revitalising your home from floor to ceiling! 😅
The colour palettes
We've already outlined the basics of autumnal colours, but we'll go into a little more detail here, with a few different colour palettes you can use to source paint, wallpaper or anything else you like. The great thing about Autumnal colours is that they all mix and match really well, just as they would in the real world. Feel free to experiment with greens, oranges and yellows all together to create a great mix that oozes cosiness.
Mood Boards and Furniture
In terms of furniture, you can be totally flexible when it comes to bringing autumn into your home. Because this time of year is also about comfort, cosiness and warmth, you are free to work around the furniture you already have and shouldn't be too concerned with ensuring everything matches and is a particular style. With that said, some styles that do work particularly well with the above colour schemes are those made from wood. Whether it's light, Scandinavian-style wooden furniture or more rustic, Boho items, furniture with lots of texture and a natural, homely look and feel work best. Here are a couple of mood boards with some ideas for how you can incorporate these two contrasting furniture styles into your home. All the following items are from our trade-only suppliers and can be used in your own interior design or show home project!
In this first example, we use furniture with lots of straight lines, light wood and minimalist features. We want to keep things as modern and simple as possible to create a look that works for lots of people and really sells the property. We wouldn't want to overwhelm people and turn them off when it comes to designing a show home property - ideally, we want to use as little furniture as possible to create a certain look. Autumnal colours like the ones in palette 2 which we've used here are so warming that even with the lighter, more "manufactured" furniture and geometric textures, the interior still looks refreshing and warm. If you are using colours like these, be careful not to go too dark with the grey and use black unless you're going for a more rustic look like the one in our second mood board - you want to keep things light in a more modern/Scandi look like the one we've gone with here.
In the second example, we chose to go with palette 3 and create a more rustic/Boho look with darker furniture and less manufactured accessories/textiles. We brought in the burnt orange in the soft furnishings and wallpaper and used the green in these beautiful and cosy velvet sofas from Coach House. The lighting adds a touch of luxury to this look but you could just as easily source cheaper lighting from a high-street retailer like Zara Home, Next Home, John Lewis or Dunelm. We chose industrial lighting with the exposed vintage bulbs to add a little more orange and give it a trendy but cosy feel. We wouldn't want to overexpose the furniture and ruin the warmth of the interior with bright white LED bulbs, for example. The hardwood Aztek range from Gallery Direct looks amazing too and strikes a great balance between rustic and modern with its dark wood and textured panels mixed with the straight lines of the black metal edging.
Artwork
With artwork, you can really do whatever you please. As we mentioned earlier, Autumnal colours in an interior are all about cosiness and giving you a warm embrace after a dark and dingy commute home, so the interior should really reflect the personality of whoever lives there, and whether you like more abstract artwork or specific prints, feel free to do what you like! Just bring in your chosen colours and ensure you don't put anything too overwhelming in e.g a large canvas on a small wall or a busy piece of artwork on already busy wallpaper.
Here are a few examples of how you can incorporate a single colour in many different ways, from modern/minimalist to poster art to abstract framed pieces.
Accessories
You can source fantastic accessories from just about any high-street or online homewares store nowadays. Even supermarkets like ASDA and department stores like M&S have a varied and up-to-date range of home accessories, ornaments, soft furnishings and more that look amazing and can be used in a variety of ways. We would recommend sourcing your accessories at the end when you have defined your colour palette and chosen the big pieces. You don't want to go shopping for gold/taupe accessories then decide on furniture that would be better suited to ochre/burnt orange accents. In show homes, we tend to keep accessories to a minimum, only using what we need to ensure spaces are filled and surfaces don't look cold and bare, but in your home, it is much more down to preference - if you have no need for artificial plants or flowers then you can forget them and maybe get more useful pieces like storage/office accessories. Likewise, if you aren't someone who is particularly fond of artwork, you can use the wallpaper/paint to bring in the autumn colours with perhaps a feature wall containing orange, green, purple or green.
Conclusion
While there are differences between designing an interior for a residential project where the client is very emotionally attached to their home and a show home where the aim is to raise the market value and sell the property, we can carry over our knowledge of getting the most out of small spaces, creating a calming and inviting atmosphere, matching colours and furniture styles to help you revitalise and fall in love with your home. Throw your personality into it and create a look you are happy with and you will feel a great sense of achievement and pride. Bringing autumn into your home is as simple as that! Pick a colour palette from the above (or create your own - who doesn't love sorting through dozens of paint tester cards at the DIY shop?) and a style of furniture you love, whether that's Boho, Scandinavian, Country or anything else that uses plenty of wood and natural materials and you can't go wrong when it comes to making your house supremely cosy and ready for the colder months!
Everything you see in our images can be used in your own interior design project. Get in touch today to get your project underway 👍
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