Meet the Experts: COAT

Join Lucy, our Head of Design as she meets with Aaron, colour expert from COAT as they chat about the big colour trends they're seeing now.

COAT Paints create on-trend colours and have a curated palette of 56 colours, making it that bit easier to find your perfect shade. We spoke to Aaron Markwell, COAT’s colour guru to get the low down on what’s hot this year and what to pair them with.

First up, we're going green...

Lucy: "We've seen a huge increase in people wanting to introduce green into their home over the last few years and it seems to be almost replacing the blues. I don't know whether it's people wanting that link to the outdoors, biophilic design and people being stuck in their houses over the last couple of years!

Aaron: "Exactly - it's that element of bringing the outdoors in which makes your home feel more welcoming. Also because green isn't a cool colour because it has that yellow pigment in it.

Because of this demand, we've introduced three new greens to our palette in 2022, the most popular of which is 'The Trail' which is this gorgeous mid grey, green. It's fairly deep which makes it versatile but because it's so grey it's quite neutral."

Lucy: "With greens, they really are so versatile like you talked about - the sage greens and The Trail here which is quite a bit lighter - these shades of green work well with contemporary interiors, they look beautiful next to birch ply and those Scandi tones."

Aaron: "Yes, there are so many more green ply kitchens lately!"

Lucy: "Absolutely - we're seeing people be bolder with their colour choices in their kitchens which is lovely - it's not just all white gloss! We saw the trend for navy blue and grey toned kitchens and now we're seeing a lot more green. The really lovely deep greens like Nomad but also these lighter ones which pair beautifully with marble, terrazzo, ply and raw timber finishes as well. We're seeing green used in so many different places in the home."

How to work with the new neutrals...

Lucy: "We're seeing a real interest in the warmer neutrals coming into people's homes, so that Japandi style and also Biophilic design as well so it's lovely to see a colour like 'Margo'.

Aaron: "Yes, Margo is a grey neutral essentially. There's a little bit of yellow in there to keep it warm. It's slightly mid toned - I like to call this the colour of nothing! Mainly because it fits with everything and works really well with wood tones in schemes with 'Big Timer' which is one of our new warmer greys as well but also it fits with our existing palette like 'Sweat pants' as well.  It creates a really harmonised grey scheme that has a little bit of yellow in there which is a bit warmer but still clean. It doesn't have that browny undertone that the taupe's have but not too blue as well."

Lucy: "Yer I think it's a really lovely colour to work with. It works really well with that Japandi style and a slightly monochromatic scheme but it hasn't got the coldness of some of the greys and beiges.

We have lots of clients come to us and say they want to play it safe with a neutral interior! I think people think it's the easy option but oh my word, there are so many neutral paint options out there."

Aaron: "Yer, it's not the safe option at all - if anything, neutrals are a danger zone! Particularly with some of these east facing rooms where your house is north-east facing which is very difficult light conditions - it's bluer, greyer and greener lighting conditions which makes some of these colours like too browny. Particularly 'Cold Brew' for example which is lovely with 'Margo' in a South facing room, this would create a wonderful low light for book cases and things like that. But in an east facing room where the light is bluer it's going to go really brown. There's always that balance with how you pair these colours in different lighting conditions. 

For east facing rooms I'd tend to go for more greeny aesthetics to embrace the energised light you get in the morning and they it turns deeper and more beigey in the morning."

How to go big and bold...

Lucy: "We've found clients have become way more bold in their colour choices for their home - a lot of them are open to going bold on the walls and introducing a dark paint colour."

Aaron: "Yes and we're seeing that in our colour consultations at COAT, I think people are embracing the darkness!"

Lucy: "Absolutely! I think 'The Establishment' is such a great colour for that because you can be bold but it's still fairly safe."

Aaron: "The Establishment is a super familiar blue with grey pigment - really popular over the last 15 years in kitchens and on feature walls. I think we're now seeing a move to something that's a bit more daring in it's usage - people are now painting their whole rooms in these colours and not just their chimney breast for example which I think is great."

Lucy: "And sometimes the ceiling!"

Aaron: "Yes exactly. It's a really stable colour because of it's pigment. It's not as vivid as some of our new bolds like 'The Posh seats' which is a peacock blue with a bit of a green undertone in there making it more vibrant. 'The Establishment' is a bit more stable and relaxed making it an easier colour to work with which is important."

Lucy: "We see so many colours that go with this from the mustard colour here, 'House points' - that works really well as many of our clients are drawn to mustards with blues. It also works well with greys and monochromes with a pop of brass - that works really well."

Aaron: "It definitely needs that warmth through something brassey or yellow as we know, blue is a fairly cold colour. Adding in yellow gives it more of a luxe vibe."

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