BC Home & Garden

Cornflower blue, personalized spaces, container gardening and resort living are among the hot picks identified by our local home-design and garden experts Top Trends for 2 Home TEXT KRISTEN HILDERMAN Blast from the past Style has a tendency to move in cycles and colour influences for the coming year are sliding back to simpler times. "Colour is going back to the '50s and the '60s," says colour expert, author and stylist Maria Killam. "We're seeing so much bright colour out there." Killam singles out cornflower blue as her favourite from this emerging colour palette. Although grey remains a popular pick for walls and furniture, accent colours are getting livelier, which means layering brighter blues over your trendy neutrals. "The thing to note about these bright colours is that they really work best with a crisp backdrop," says Killam. A cornflower blue accent doesn't sit well in a space filled with warm tones like caramels, golds and browns; it needs the cool compatibility of greys, blacks and whites, she adds. Despite grey's massive popularity, Killam refers to it as a "debilitating colour" when overused. "People gravitate toward the trendy neutral and they decorate their whole house in it," she says. Shades of grey come to life when you introduce bright pops of colour, but a few throw pillows or vases aren't enough for a powerful accent like cornflower blue. "You need to have small, medium and large accents of the same colour," says Killam. She recommends buying several matching picture frames (Killam prefers Ikea's 20-½-inch, square Ribba frames), painting them cornflower blue, fitting them with custom mats, and then filling them with postcardsized pictures to match. Be playful with your accents by spreading them around your space, because in the end, colour is meant to be fun. Colour expert, author and stylist Maria Killam [PHOTO venturi + karpa] 46 | BC HOME & garden February 2013 p46-53_Home+GarTrends.indd 46 13-01-23 11:13 AM

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