Are dark colours still 'in'?

[ThirstyMeeples]

About 5 years ago, i went with the whole dark, jewel colour themes. I painted my living room Hague Blue and my hallway a deep purple. I still quite like them but I'm craving a bit of light and airy. I'm beginning to think these darker shades are looking dated.
What do you think? (I know lots will say go with what you like and I do still find them cosy but wondering if I should switch it up a bit)

How about candy colours - stripes, bright, fun, a bit 80s.

I love candy stripes - so fun. I have a feeling though that I'd be trying to redecorate in another 3 years if I went for them!

If you can't be bothered redecorating, try new pictures, a new layout, new lamps/cushions etc. You could just 'shop your home' if you don't want new. Or Try charity shops/auctions/selling sites.

Or, just go light n airy, if that's what you prefer.

I think it depends. I have studio green in my living room so very dark, but kitchen/playroom is very light and airy so have both. I've considered changing the dark green but I just don't want to get into a pattern of redecorating every few years because of what's on Instagram. It's all very light and airy on there now but dark was in a few years ago! My husband thinks I'm mad for considering it, his parents have never redecorated their house and he considers it a once every 10 years at most kinda job!

I know lots will say go with what you like and I do still find them cosy but wondering if I should switch it up a bit
Yes, I'm going to say go with what you like. There's no "should" about it. Of you like them keep them, if you fancy a change, change.

I just painted my bedroom a dark blue, lounge will be going darker in a couple of years when we redecorate because that's what we like.

I think jewel / dark / bold is starting to be ‘over’, yes. A mid century or 70s vibe is coming instead I think.

I have made a really concerted effort to choose colours that work well with our house since we moved here about 15 years ago. It’s worked well in some spaces and we are actually redecorating in the same shades. Two rooms I definitely failed in and they look dated, one with a navy feature wallpaper and the other papered in a grey pattern. I really think it’s worth trying to forget what’s current and find your house’s own style. It’s hard! But I can’t be doing with the constant redecoration.

The colour that's annoying me atm is bloody sage green - it's so meh! And I have it in both the bathrooms I've inherited, it makes me want to cry - the people who lived in the house before us were obsessed with it - but I've managed to paint it all out - mostly - still the garden shed to do. Dark shades are dramatic, pale shades are light and airy - sage green is so bloody safe and dull - it's the same vibe as beige and magnolia. So go for anything but sage green!

@Chewbecca the mid-century vibe has been - it's not coming. 70's would be interesting though - it feels it needs a modern interpretation. There's a hotel in Brighton that went for 70s penthouse chic - shag pile carpets, heavily patterned and textured wallpaper, animal skins, leopard print - it was fun but it was a whole lot to live with.

When it comes to colours I ignore fads and fashions and work with the qualities of the spaces I have instead, although often with advice as I'm pretty good with colours but definitely no expert! I'm in no way wedded to Farrow & Ball but they give fantastic, in-depth free advice in their stores. Particularly the Chelsea branch who are fantastic.

F&B's main range can be a bit limiting but with the archive colours too it's absolutely massive. I knew I wanted archive colour Buff in my light, airy living room but couldn't decide what to go for in the much darker dining room. I wanted something light or moderate but the advisor showed me that lighter colours just look grey and 'blah' in dull rooms, which is the last thing I want. So I'm going for a deep, rich red instead.

Well there you go, if mid century has moved on already, proves my point!! How about colour washing, paint the ceilings and above the picture rails, does that just go along with the dark, moody look and has therefore already passed? I am swerving that one too, just in case.

Decorating trends seem to move on much more quickly than in the past, presumably because of social media. They only seem to last a couple of years now, not the 10 or so they used to.

So many people say 'I don't follow trends, I am just decorating like this because it's my taste' are often deluded, you only have to look at how they decorated 5 or 10 years earlier to know that. It's subliminal, the trends get in the shops, bars, on your phone and in your view and it is really, really hard to resist!

So many people say 'I don't follow trends, I am just decorating like this because it's my taste' are often deluded, you only have to look at how they decorated 5 or 10 years earlier to know that. It's subliminal, the trends get in the shops, bars, on your phone and in your view and it is really, really hard to resist!
Of course. But there's still a difference between redecorating because you don't like that anymore (which will be influenced by trends) and wondering if you should redecorate because you think someone else might think your current choices are passe.

Dh is friends with a joiner.

He fits kitchens all over the city. One particular road is highly fashionable. The colours chosen there ripple out across the city over 5 years or so. Navy and dark green have gone from the posh road. Terracotta and warmer colours are there at the moment.

I decorated my house to suit my taste. I could not care less what is 'fashionable'.

I like darker colours and have decorated like that all my adult life, fashionable or not.
I'm just colour matching my “library”. The dark red colour we used was so long ago, it has been discontinued!

Yes, this. It's probably impossible to be entirely uninfluenced by trends, even if only because they influence the things that are actually available for sale (I have an ingrained loathing of those giant greige tiles that were de rigueur for bathrooms for a while, but they were everywhere in tile shops, and I had to look much harder to find the type I liked), but if you follow trend to the extent that you feel compelled to redecorate biannually for fear of looking passé, that's a bit mad.

Completely agree - everyone is influenced by trends and whilst you can become over-consumed by them the other extreme is to create a bland room that looks dated before you've even finished it. Classic and interesting is very hard to pull off - usually requires a lot of talent and/or some very interesting architecture.

I'm loving the whole California look done by Shea McGee, I find it so relaxing in a shared space but you have to work with what you've got - the architecture, the space, the room orientation and how the rest of your home is decorated. My sage green bathroom tiles annoy me but I'm not replacing them - even the guy at the paint shop dated them as 5 years old😂(and he was right!) The previous owners painted the kitchen Inchyra blue and whilst it's not the colour I'd choose, I can live with it - I did need to paint out the apple green splashback they paired with it - it was hideous.

The antiques trade is a fascinating barometer for interior design trends. Very few dealers are still buying mid-century stuff because it's just selling much slower and people aren't as willing to pay crazy money for what are often really low-quality pieces. When mid-century first started to boom it was easy money. It's had a good run of it for a few years now, but definitely on the way down.

Authentic eclecticism is on the up, although it's less easy to make a large profit because the pieces are already of fairly good age/quality. Late-19th/early-20th century bamboo furniture and mirrors have shot up in the last six months or so - you couldn't give that stuff away a year/18 months ago. Good quality aesthetic period pieces are very popular, as is 18th & 19thC Grand Tour tat and bog standard Georgian country furniture with attractive signs of age. Art Deco is creeping up again too.

Not sure what any of this says about colour, apart from maybe paint what suits the rooms and ignore the prevailing fashions because they're always going to change?

I love dark colours. Just wallpapered bedroom with black and red floral wallpaper and bathroom is magenta. Kitchen will be emerald green. Couldn't give a toss if it's fashionable, I like it, that's what matters imo

Anything old feels like it has shot up in price. I bought a few Victorian standing lamps for a £10 on ebay before lockdown - I notice smiliar things are going for well over £60 now. Darker furniture is also making a come back. I shop in the less trendy areas (we live in a wealthy but tasteless back-water - you only have to glance at Rightmove to know what I mean) - I always find the local council reuse shop brilliant, found so many very low-priced bargains.

Dd who’s always pretty with it is obsessed with toile de jouy and grandma/cottage core.

None of this features dark colours really.

I don't think it's all or nothing, it's now about choosing dark or light judiciously to achieve the feel you want in different parts of your house. So in my place, which is starved of light, I have gone light in the rooms that have some light and made a feature of dark in the dark spaces. You might also go dark in 'evening' spaces and light in daytime spaces.

It's true that dark blue and green have peaked (though you would have to prise dark green out of my cold dead hands) and plaster/terracotta colours are in. You have to like them, though, and I don't. Also currently fashionable are pale blue, burgundy and brown.

If I were you I'd be tempted to keep your purple hallway and paint your living room a not-cold light blue (maybe F&B Skylight or Light Blue or LG Bone China Light). Colour drench it, up over the ceiling, and accent with brown (or dark wood) and some warm purple to tie in with the hall.

I've also embraced the dark (or the deep, really, not dark) in darker places -- we have a north-facing back hall and an internal corridor lit only by a skylight, and I painted one a deep, warm green, and the other a sort of dull gold. It made my mother very twitchy, as she thinks trying to maximise light is axiomatic, but even she has come round.

Agree that dark blue and dark green seemto have been everywhere over the last few years (I have a bathroom with dark blue wallpaper and another in bancha, but DH was not keen on a main room being dark).

I'm obsessing a bit over light blue at the moment and am considering different shades of it for several rooms (I was the same about grey about 15 years ago). A lot of paint companies have chosen light to mid blues as their colour of the year so I think that might be the next big thing.

Pinks/beige/earthy colours are very popular, Little Greene's Sweet Treats are everywhere at the moment. Not keen myself but it's been a long time since browns were fashionable so they probably feel fresh to younger people.

My teenagers love all the folksy stuff, woodland wallpapers and mushroom lamps etc. Fits with the browns but think it's a mini trend rather than the next big thing.

But if anything Pinterest and Instagram mean that anything goes, the whole dopamine decoration thing means it's OK to like colourful minimalism or cottage core. The biggest trend is sustainability with the rise of Vinterior and Narchie. And if people really start thinking about sustainability properly there will be less pulling out of perfectly functional kitchens and bathrooms and more creative redecoration.

The fashion now is for very dull flat 70s tones of greens, pink, taupe and browns. Accompanied by lots of plants, wood, raffia and hessian, brass. It's not my taste but it will go out of fashion in a while.