Interior design as we know it has changed post-lockdown. With many of us still working from home, there has been a move away from open-plan living, and a growing importance on placing a divider between our ‘work’ and ‘personal lives’. Instead of using our bedrooms to work, play, and relax, we want functional areas that help us stop becoming overwhelmed when we are working from home. We are no longer using our homes to simply ‘eat, drink and sleep’ but our houses have become professional spaces too, as we double up as party hosts, entrepreneurs and home owners. That is why the interior design industry needs to adapt, and create colourful summer interior trends that support remote workers.
After all, consumer lifestyle plays a huge part in defining interior design trends, and there is likely to be an increased need for incorporating colourful and stylish home offices in the layout of our homes. As a colourful entrepreneur who is working remotely, I prefer the comfort, familarity and accessibility of working from home. You can decorate your office, bedroom, study or lounge in your personal style, and forgo co-working spaces, coffee shops and libraries in favour of staying home, and avoiding the commute. Home is our safe place, so comfort, coziness and aesthetic is paramount.
That is why in 2021 a focus on home design that revolves around personality is so important. It’s your chance to put your personal stamp on your home, whether that be your bedroom, office, kitchen or lounge and turn it into a magical, productive and energectic house that isn’t just pleasing to look at but is also functional too. Think bold primary colours to contrast against neutral hues in your home, like Pantone’s use of ‘Illuminating’ (yellow) and ‘Ultimate Gray’. Embodying strength, positivity married with optimism and practicality, neutralising bold colours is the perfect way to bring colour into your home, without going down the maximalism route.
If cottagecore fantasies are more your cup of tea, then you will love returning back to a slower way of living, revelling in the romance of rural life. You will work in an environment where nature is at the forefront, surrounded by lush green botanical plants, soft pastels and pastoral prints. Speaking of nature, one of the biggest colourful interior trends is coastal decor, where we forgo the souless glass buildings, puncuated with monotony, in favour of aesthetics that mimic the calmness and tranquility of the ocean. You can almost hear the soothing waves now.
Creating calm in your home is vital now that more of us are working remotely, and it is important to use colours that help you feel at peace. Tropical greens, teal blues and sunshine yellows are widely believed to be calming and healing, and colour can bring much needed positive energy into our home. With many of us battling mental health issues, fatigue and overwhelm, creating a wonderland at home can do a lot to soothe you. Take it from me, there is a reason why I constantly live in colour. Bright colours boost my mood, productivity and make me happy.
If you want to create happiness at home in 2021, then look no further. From being mindful about the environment and using natural materials to decorate your house, to imitating the outside world with rich, earthy tones, here are 5 incredible ways that you can create a colourful home that boosts your mental health, makes your home a great place to come back to, and distinguishes between work and play!
Be Bold With A Primary Palette
The brighter and lighter colours are, the more happy and optimistic you will feel. Consider this, are you happiest in a room that is dark, with little light or does a bright yellow room boost your mood? Of course the way we see and feel colours is down to colour preferences, but scientifically speaking, brighter colours are more likely to make you feel happier at home. For example reds are energizing, a stimulating colour that gets your heart pumping. Green creates balance, yellow induces positivity and blue evokes tranquility and calm.
Just think how amazing your home will be, when you use two primary colours against a muted palette, like pastel yellow and mint green, colours to create optimism, happiness, productivity and balance in a soothing oasis that will help you work and play. One of 2021’s hottest colourful summer interior trends, it gives your home an artistic edge, induces creativity and makes you want to spend more time at home!
However, please be aware that too much colour in a large area like your bedroom, office or kitchen overstimulates the retinas which can strain the eyes. To balance out the bright colours in your home, you can neutralize the colours by using Karndean vinyl flooring, which will help make your home look light and airy. When you use ‘neutral vinyl flooring’, not only is it versatile, and will go with any colour in your home, but it is also affordable, and a great base for your colourful home. So how do you go about creating balance between ‘bold colours’ and ‘neutral brights’?
You can go big or small.If you are dipping your toe into colour, why not focus on creating a bold-two colour accent palette, using colours such as pink and blue together or green and yellow. Using accents as opposed to turning your whole home into a colour paradise, is ideal for those who are minimalists, and just want to contrast against neutrals in their home. Your walls, and flooring can be neutral, using hues like browns, whites and grays, but your lamps, light fixtures, sofa cushions, and wall art can follow your designated colour palette.
The colour in your home should also make you feel good as soon as you walk in the door. Colour should boost your mood, relax you, and make you love your space. If you have a paint colour that you look at every day and think “I really need to change that,” then it’s time for a fresh colour. My personal favourite colour combination? Pastel blue and baby pink, both incredibly uplifting colours that are soft and sweet.
Get Inspired By The Sea With Coastal Decor
As a part-time mermaid, my favourite way of following colourful summer interior trends in my home is through coastal decor. After all, there is nothing that is more soothing than feeling like you are by the sea, the waves lapping against the pristine silky sand. With international travel off our lists for the forseeable future, we are all yearning for tropical getaways, coastal weekend breaks and spa retreats that remind us of jetsetting around the world. So why not get inspired by the sea, and recreate your favourite beach paradise in the heart of your own home?
After all, as someone who misses travelling, what better ideas than creating bedrooms, kitchens, gardens and lounges that reflect our travels, the sea and distant shores. In my case, my family are from Madeira, a stunning Portuguese island surrounded by clear blue sparkling waters, black sand beaches, and gorgeous tropical flowers. If I was looking to recreate the laid-back lifestyle of Madeirian life, it would involve colourful interiors, with sunny yellows, peachy oranges, and dazzling blues. You would incorporate flowers such as Strelitzia, with big banana leaves, budding Protea’s and Aloe up to 1 metre high. Flowers, colour and texture is at the forefront of Madeira’s coastal decor.
Want a more ‘generic’ coastal theme? Tropical leaves and florals can be used to bring the outside indoors, with an introduction to greenery into homes. Adding a contemporary edge to classic floral design, the costal trend features tropical brights, subtle monotones and soft pastels. Think hues like vivid green, acid banana yellows, vibrant reds and cobalt blues, to bring the ocean, and its culture to your home. Want to recreate a party beach? Think deep/teal blues, grassy greens and sunset hues to bring the flavour of international travel.
To add coastal decor to your home in a subtle way, why not frame prints of you at the beach with your loved ones around the house? Using a shell frame, gather shells you have collected from trips to the beach, and create your own frames to give your home a rustic, personalized feel. Or you can even create digital prints using tropical leaves, flowers, and coastal prints, with complementary colour palettes to design a coastal meets tropical wall, to bring your beach fantasies to life.
Want colour inspiration? Ocean blues are key for this years colourful summer interior trends. From deep inky tones to soft aquas, blue is the ultimate colour for creating a tranquil home. With a shift towards tranquil, yet modern interiors, capturing relaxing poolsides, beach va-vacys and coastal retreats offers a calm, yet fresh and modern look. After all, when you find peace, comfort and stillness in your home, you are able to unwind, detox and feel free from the shackles of everyday life.
Create A Country Scheme With Cottagecore
Speaking of sweet, 2020’s Cottagecore trend is here to stay and its easy to see why. After being in lockdown over a year, our need for comfort and nostalgia is what keeps us going, and Cottagecore is the epitome of coziness. It embraces a simpler, sustainable existence that is more harmonious with nature. Aesthetically, it’s a nod to the traditional English countryside style, with dreamy romantic led interior design, that will make you feel right at home. What started off as simple trend, has now been mixed with touches of glamorous chic for a colourful summer that is luxe.
All set within a muted pastel palette, this is ideal for the dreamers among us who are looking for colourful summer interior trends that aren’t too brashy. Key aesthetic components are bringing natural elements indoors as decorative elements such as flowers-dried or fresh- house plants, and a natural colour palette that is brought to life with warm tones. The ethos is whimsical and nostalgic but with quirky and eco-friendly elements that reflect our need for beauty, sustainability and security.
For example, what connotes pastoral beauty to you? For me that is woven picnic baskets filled with bright and fresh flowers like lavender, tulips and roses, ditzy floral prints and muted, mellow interior design. Think creamy yellow bikes with a vintage basket, bright floral cushions against velvet sofas and gilded framed paintings of peaceful countryside vistas, rolling hills flecked with green. Carve out a rustic oak reading nook, and put sparkling string lights around your room, to create a tranquil bedroom oasis that you can’t resist.
Want to go the extra mile? Why not create an indoor garden to celebrate nature and the great outdoors? When you are around plants this helps you feel more calm, relaxed and decreases levels of anxiety. It also improves memory and attention span by 20% and can even increase your concentration. What’s more houseplants naturally purfiy the air and is a fantastic way to bring greenery into your home. You can also create your own vegetable and herb patch, grow your own flowers and edible plants. It is entirely up to you!
Make Eco-Friendly Choices With Sustainable Interior Design
Being eco-friendly is more than just an aesthetic movement, but a way of life. It plays to our desire for spirtual connection and wellbeing balanced by a commitement to sustainability. It encourages us to use the natural world in a kind way, paying homage to Mother Earth, with a focus on conscious consumerism. Our need to feel grounded and centered, allows us to feel connected to our earth, with understated furniture, textile fabrics, sustainable materials and multi-functional, warm minimalism. But where does colour enter the building?
Although not as colourful as the other trends in a traditional sense, it has a huge focus on texture, with materials such as bamboo, natural fiber, straw and cork being used to contrast against bolder accent hues. For example, your pastel yellow wall might be juxtaposed with a recycled wood floor, while your garden shed might be made out of durable bamboo. It’s important to engage your senses with meaningful design and calming fabrics, so bear that in mind when you are looking for sustainable materials for your home.
Colours and textures are rustic in an eco-friendly home, with warm tones coming to the forefront. Golden beiges, moss greens, soft olives and earthy oranges are new colours that are popular in the sustainble movement, and can help balance out more dominating, brighter colours in your home. After all, there is such as a thing as doing too much. In particular, eco-friendly design shows that climate change, the environment and our natural world is more than just a trend. Remember to use sustainably sourced materials wherever possible, injecting rich, warm colours into your home. Looking for carpets? Coir, seagrass and Jute are sustainably sourced, while deep pile carpets are great for bedrooms.
Cork is another fantastic eco-friendly material, that can be used in anything from your floor, to your ceiling, wall and even in your garden. Whether you use mini cork planters, create a cork feature wall, emblazoned with stunning vines, leaves and houseplants or DIY your own cork floor, cork is a popular sustainable material. The question is how will you introduce it into your home?
Imitate The Outside World With A Touch Of Green
Speaking of the outside world, when it comes to imagining peaceful scenes, nothing evokes it quite like the countryside. Which is why the colour green is still hot, hot, hot for 2021, colourful summer interior trends that are bold without being overbearing. Synonymous with nature and calming qualities, if you want to create contentment at home, then green is your ‘IT colour’!’From velvety dark greens to the light and uplifting tones, greens can be used all over the home and have a powerful, restorative quality. Green shades are renowned for improving concentration, helping you think, and is an empowering mood booster.
So get inspired by your nearest landscape and make green the forefront of your colourful, calming home. After all green reinforces the need to be connected to nature, and helps breathe new life into living rooms, bedrooms and kitchens. Interested in Feng Shui? Green belongs to the wood element and is a calming, balancing color that is all about fresh, new beginnings and renewal.When you use a light, muted green it will help open up your room, especially in summer, acting like an updated neutral. You don’t need to just focus on greens either.
Green goes well with an abundance of colours. Deep, rich greens are beautiful with crystal whites, while a hunter green is exciting with burnt orange. Looking to create luxury? Emeralds look beautiful with jewel tones like burgundies, and navy blues. If you want something a little more understated, focus on creating a feature wall, motif or accent palette, so that your home still feels distinctly like you. You can mix it up with prints like tropical palm fronds, psychotropicalism, minimal florals and even gingham for a touch of fun in your house.
Ideal for a summer refresh, green is 2021’s answer to the versatile gray, and far more exciting. It’s unmatched in its ability to bring life to any space, representing the balanced tones of nature and promoting a feeling of wellness and vigor. You can colour block with green paint to add a splash of colour to your home without going the full hog if colour scares you. If you are into boho chic, pair green with craftsy wood, the greens and browns marrying beautifully together. Not a fan? Mix a dark pink with a pastel pink to make your home stand out from the crowd.
What Are Your Favourite Colourful Summer Interior Trends?
*Disclaimer
Please note this is a collaborative post but all thoughts are my own and are not affected by monetary compensation.
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