Before you hurry to turn the page, wait – give brown another chance.
The word may conjure up images of dowdy old-fashioned rooms decked out in shades of mustard and dingy brown. But given a pinch of grey or a twist of gold, brown can be a wonderful colour with which to paint your walls.
In fact, let’s not call it brown. Try these descriptive tags and brown turns from yuck to yum: cocoa, chocolate, coffee, cinnamon, sepia, nut, russet, rust and mahogany.
Resene Mondo bedroom
Nutty and warm In fact, brown-based colours have been hugely popular in recent years: albeit dubbed as toasty neutrals and nutty greys like Resene Drought and Resene Oilskin.
Many an interior scheme has been built on tonal colour schemes, using varying strengths of one of the gorgeous pale neutral browns off the Resene Whites & Neutrals collection. Resene Tea (described as a complex river-boulder beige) always ranks high on the Resene Top 20 list of most popular colours. This type of ‘greige’ (grey beige) colour is hugely versatile and useful in interiors. And of course, one of our most-loved decorating materials – timber – is brown. So we’re actually quite used to seeing this colour not only in our homes, but also in nature.
Brown is generally thought of as a masculine colour that promotes feelings of strength and stability. It’s comfortable, warm, approachable and reassuring.
Add yellow for amber tones and tawny browns, like Resene Korma, or add black for dense rustic browns, like Resene Sidewinder. Tobacco browns or paper-bag browns, like Resene Sandal, work well with traditional interiors, especially for more intimate spaces like bedrooms and studies. Or add a squeeze of orange for rust-browns that have more warmth and zing.
Left: Resene Oilskin fireplace; designed by Yellowfox. Right: Resene Curtain Collection Haven in colour Naturalle with Resene Stonehenge walls.
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Colours shown on this website are a representation only. Please refer to the actual paint or product sample. Resene colour charts, testpots and samples are available for ordering online. See measurements/conversions for more details on how electronic colour values are achieved.
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