natural-born style

One of the big colour trends this season has its origins firmly rooted in nature. The earth, greenery, sea and sky have often inspired the colours we use inside our homes. They are, after all, colours we are innately familiar with and are such easy colours to live with.

Using natural colour provides a digital detox after a day spent looking at screens, being bombarded with bright advertising messages and working in sometimes windowless spaces. The colours invented by nature ground us and calm us.

This year, those colours flow in two directions. One family of natural colours is home to shades of boldness and depth with sharp greens, spicy ochres and untamed terracottas. Think Resene Green Leaf, Resene Hot Toddy and Resene Chelsea Gem.

Embrace nature head-on with a vine pattern as a bedhead. This one is painted freehand using Resene testpots in Resene Feijoa, Resene Summer Green and Resene Ottoman onto a wall in Resene Leap Year. With a floor painted in Resene Aquamarine and sideboard drawers in Resene Surf Crest, you’ll feel like you’re sleeping in a forest.

The other direction is subtle and soothing, with soft sage greens, hempy browns and barely-there peach. Think Resene Bud, Resene Castaway, Resene Egg Sour and Resene Quarter Spanish White.

Put your preconceptions aside

You may think that using leaves or trees as inspiration for a fresh green scheme makes sense but the true colour of many types of ‘green’ foliage is much muddier and muted than you would think. There are few very clean, clear greens in nature, which is why those who think that painting their fence a grass green will help it blend with the garden can get a rude shock.

The same can be said of many of nature’s colours – aside from the most vibrant flowers, bluest skies or glowing sunsets, natural colours are soft and muted not clear and bright.

This is a great example of blending a feature wall cleverly with adjacent walls so that it retains its character yet isn’t too obvious. It’s created with a wallpaper from the Resene Wallpaper Collection (design 33548-3). Pair it with walls in Resene Toffee.

Nature-inspired schemes aren’t just brown and green. There are many more aspects of nature from which to take your cue – flowers of any hue, highcountry tussock, rivers, clay, grey river pebbles, appleskin reds, mountains or volcanos with their bright azure crater lakes, sunrises and sunsets. And of course, our vast stretches of coastline offer a wealth of inspiration – white sand, black sand, sea, surf, shells and seaweed.

Work on texture and tone

Colours in nature are rarely just one tone. You may see a flower as pink but look closer and there will be variations of pink, from outer older petals through to the pearlescent throat of the flower. The same can be said of bark, rock, earth, leaves… anything really.

Left: Dusky greens are finding their way into our homes. This floor and wall in Resene Yucca (left above the shelf) and Resene Middle Earth are the perfect backdrop to natural textures and soft oatmeal and timber tones. The tables are painted in Resene Middle Earth, Resene Yucca and Resene Envy, the tall vase is in Resene Permanent Green and the plant pot is in Resene Gondwana.

Right: Have you heard of Japandi? It’s a mix between Japanese and Scandi styles, using simple organic shapes, natural colours and textural elements. This interpretation of the look has walls in Resene Double Sisal, a floor in Resene Parchment, a side table in Resene Scrub and a jug in Resene Korma. The plant pot is in Resene Mai Tai, the basket planter is in Resene Double Lemon Grass and the tall vase is in Resene Triple Ash. The wide bowl on top of the cabinet is in Resene Soya Bean.

And few natural objects are one texture. Think rough earth, knubby bark, smooth river pebbles, glossy leaves, satiny petals, glimmering shells… in fact, include a few found objects as accessories. Twigs in a vase, shells in a bowl or rough stones lined up on the mantelpiece – it’s decorating for free.

If your earthy scheme is looking too drab, check that you have the texture levels right. Try for three different types, say a jute rug, a translucent glass vase and a weathered timber coffee table. Natural schemes don’t have to be rustic and earthy; they can also be elegant or architectural. Earthy wall colours look particularly good with textural paint-on anaglypta wallpapers. Check out the range at your local Resene ColorShop.

Proportions and placement

Let nature guide the proportions of colour you use. In nature, the ground plane is often dark (earth), while the middle is lighter (bush, trees, landscape) and the top is light (sky and clouds). These sorts of intensities traditionally translate to your room – a darker floor covering, mid-toned walls and a pale ceiling. Unless you’re aiming for something unexpected, for most of us having a dark brown ceiling and white floor would feel odd; we’re just not used to it.

Serve up a stylish table:
Bring nature home on a smaller scale than just your wall colour with these quick and quirky linen printing ideas. All it takes is a few Resene testpots, some simple ‘tools’ available in most kitchens and some plain napkins – we bought ours at Kmart.

We used a bamboo fork to make frond patterns in Resene Kaitoke Green (paint the stem first with a paint brush), as well as the end of a straw dipped in Resene Snow Drift, and a cut apple dipped in Resene Spring Rain.

Top tip: To use your own nature photos for inspiration, load them into the Resene Colour Palette Generator and it will suggest some Resene colours for you to help get you started. See www.resene.com/palettegenerator.

Styling: Vanessa Nouwens, Emily Somerville-Ryan, Gem Adams, Leigh Stockton
Pictures: Wendy Fenwick, Bryce Carleton

Want to get your own free copy of future issues of habitat magazine?

Printed copies of habitat highlights are available from late March 2024 at Resene ColorShops and resellers, while stocks last. You can view back issues of habitat magazine online.

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