If you read my articles regularly, you know how much I love the rich color palette nature offers; I draw inspiration from it. Whether a homeowner is looking for soothing calm colors or a rich and dramatic palette, they soon realize that natural colors might be exactly what they need! I’ve noticed that earth-tone colors have become very popular with my clients in the past few years. When I’m curating their interior color schemes, there’s usually a desire to leave some colors and textures very elemental and pure, as if nature was always a part of the space.
Although I think the pandemic amplified this desire to include nature-inspired elements in the design of our homes, I believe the movement toward Biophilic Design was long overdue!
If you’d like to incorporate some earth tones into your living space, this blog is for you! I decided to distill some of the basic and most powerful concepts to use when bringing earth-tone colors into different spaces of your home.
According to Merriam-Webster, earth tones are: “any of various rich colors containing some brown.” That might be technically accurate, but I beg to differ! Yes, many earth tones traditionally have some brown in them, but brown is not the only characteristic of earth tones, as far as I’m concerned. Earth tones are colors inspired by the natural color tones of worldly elements such as soil, sky, rock, water, leaves, plants, trees, etc. But, I feel the most important characteristic of earth-tone colors is that they are not “doctored.” What do I mean by that? To successfully replicate earth tones, the colors cannot be tampered with to brighten them and add more luminance or saturation, whatever you would call it, making these colors go from feeling real to feeling plastic or man-made. Earth tones have to replicate nature’s colors without the obvious hand of human interference.
Some of the cornerstone earth-tone colors are:
For me, earth-tone colors have another characteristic synonymous with their presence, and that’s their texture. Texture in interior design can be just as significant as the color choices themselves, and earth tones are a primary example of this.
Picture for a moment a living room full of earth tones. Soft whites, browns, forest greens, and deep blues are everywhere for the eye to see, but the textures are all flat; this doesn’t exactly invoke the feeling of being out in nature, does it? But, take the same colors and add texture; it’s a completely different story.
Now picture the same living room, the walls have a creamy egg-shell white with a thick and coarse-textured finish, and the coffee table and end tables are rich oak with a light stain that allows the natural colors to come out and reveal the texture in the knots, fibers, and grains of the wood. The green in the room is living nature itself in the form of a floor-standing bird of paradise plant. The presence and warmth of nature is amplified by keeping textures prominent on all the earth tone surfaces.
It’s important to let the earth tones speak for themselves when you introduce them into your home spaces. Earth tones layer beautifully on top of one another and rarely clash. However, be very calculated and considerate when adding accents or other tonal elements into a space with earth tones; keep it friendly and natural-feeling for the best results.
An office adorned with earth tones and blessed with beautiful natural lighting from large bay windows wouldn’t be a place I’d choose to introduce a neon yellow or pink lounge chair. The emotional intentions of the colors are too out of balance to work together in a space like that. If earth tones are established in a space, be sure to continue the unadulterated facade they provide and not alter it with elements out of context.
So, what do you feel about earth-tone colors? Are they too subdued and relaxed for you? Or do they help you feel relaxed and reconnected with nature? Please share your thoughts; I always love hearing how you incorporate color schemes into your lives!
