At Studio Dean the colour brown isn’t a trend (we don’t care much for trends - we create designs to love for a lifetime). We’ve been using tones of brown forever but we don’t blame you for being sceptical. If thoughts of 70s or 90s décor spring to mind when you consider decorating with brown then we’re glad you stopped by! Let us enlighten you about the warm, welcoming beauty of brown and how you can tap into this year’s interior design colour of choice with timeless results that you will love for years to come.

My relationship with brown began at a very early age when I was forced to wear a truly hideous brown school uniform. Being me, I invented various ways to style it and use slightly nicer shades of brown wherever I could get away with it. From there, I have developed a sharp eye for brown and how to pair and style it most beautifully. Nowadays brown and I are best friends, it is one of my favourite colours, I wear it all the time and bring it into many of my design projects.

Hopefully when you think of Studio Dean, many other words spring to mind before brown - it’s never intended to be the centrepiece, more a beautiful element within many of our schemes. A brown interior colour scheme is surprisingly versatile and not at all as dramatic as it sounds, as there are so many tones that you can ease into. Opting for a neutral brown base allows you to have versatility in your home as you can easily bring in other colours and trends alongside this beauty. Add in a green for an earthy, nature inspired feeling, opt for a pink for a soft feminine space or a navy if you want something a little more bold. Much to the annoyance of my husband who I enlist in all of my home jobs, I am known to have summer and winter cushions at home - pink in summer and then tonal and textured in winter - both working in my brown living room. It is a simple switch that makes the room have a whole different feeling. These tiny switch-outs alongside a base in a solid neutral mean you are not getting tired of your room and deciding to redecorate far more often than you need to!

IS BROWN FOR YOU?

I know brown is a trend right now, and I am delighted to see it in the mainstream! However please act with caution around any trend, make sure it is fundamentally something you love before going all in. Firstly ask yourself - is it really you? When we work with clients we have a style meeting with them to discover their core style, and to make sure if we do happen to choose something that is trending, it is chosen not based on the trend, but insead on the preferences of the person who will be living in the space for years to come.

So how can you be sure you are not riding the interior design trend train? Firstly, take a look in your wardrobe - just open the doors and step back to see what’s in there. It is likely there will be a theme to what you see. Is it a plethora of rainbow colours? Monotone? Are there patterns all over the place, or is it a tonal variation on one colour theme? Although interiors and fashion differ, this will give you a good indication of your natural ‘happy pallette’. Our ethos and the goal of any design project we work on is that you will feel more at home than ever before in our spaces, and in making sure anything we pick is in your world, so please do that for yourself too. If, following this exercise you've found your fashion choices do indeed include browns, caramels, taupes, beiges, creams etc…. then this colour choice is for you. It will feel delicious!

So, brown - it’s nature's best backdrop, right? Who doesn’t enjoy a walk in the countryside and immediately feel calmed by its simplicity. Brown is always the understudy to the more verdant greens. Brown is there as the base, the bark of the tree, the soil to the grass and do not get me started on my all time favourite season for a walk (the Autumn of course , it’s all my shades!) When thinking about a scheme you need to give it depth, never more true with brown which is not at its strongest on its own, it needs variation as you see in nature too. A tree’s bark is not just one brown, it has many shades and textures, so when working with brown use lots of shades and textures to look natural. Pick a palette of tones of brown, you’ll need four or five shades going from light to dark.

Remember, though you may be picking the shade from paint chips, they are colours and tones to be used throughout the scheme in different surfaces and textures - not just the walls. Think about the floor, sofa, worktops etc, you don’t need to spread brown paint about like my children left alone with a pot of Nutella. Keep the main features neutral and scatter the deeper tones into the mix. Paint the walls taupe, greige, or even cream if the others still feel too dark for you, bring in brown furniture, add wood, cushions, linen curtains in a taupe tone - all of these elements layer together so well. Try to get small samples of each of these things and place them all together before you hit the shops and get going. It will pay dividends to know where you are going and how much brown you can handle before you start.

WHAT COLOURS GO WITH BROWN?

Don’t go too stark and try to contrast with brown, take things slowly and layer up and down through the palette you have selected, it is a colour that likes to be understated and simple. Oh, and also when you do bring in some colours to be friends with your brown main colour, hold all of the colours together and make sure it has the same undertone (you’ll know as they will all work well together, if one is standing out and not quite working I’d bet you £1,000 it’s an undertone issue!) This is going to help immensely in making the room feel cohesive.

It seems a little too obvious to state but honestly mother nature is the queen of colour, and brown and green could not be a better match - heavenly. I’m actually writing this from my holiday this year - I’m lucky enough to be in a cabin right now out in the countryside near The Hague. As I write I’m surrounded by brown and green, the sun is just breaking through (early riser here!) and is starting to dapple through the canopy of trees glorious in their green and brown shades.

A little more controversial and less obvious is a brown and black combination, we love it! It will come as no surprise to anyone to know I love to bring in drama to a room, light and dark combining together to give the space depth is something we bring to all projects. Feel free to try it, pick a brown undertoned black like Benjamin Moore Black Beauty for the walls and then choose a tan leather chair to sit in front of it, it's the perfect backdrop! Scroll through our Northumberland and Scotland based brown interior design projects to see some gorgeous examples.

One close to my heart of course is a touch of pink. I know I know it can be a disaster, but now that you have an understanding of undertones you can pull it off! No magentas welcome in this colour pairing, make sure the pink you select is dirty, muddy pink. Benjamin Moore’s Muddy York is a fab example of the tone you need to be brown's new best friend. Again, think outside of it being a wall colour, select the pink just as a throw, an object (think oversized battered stoneware with a matt pink distressed finish - I can feel a shopping trip coming on!), or perhaps just use those tones in artwork in the room.

BEST BROWNS FOR INTERIOR DESIGN

Whenever we are picking a brown, it is all about undertones and how it layers up and down. Some browns are very red or green; you may like the particularly dark or light version of it but as you go up and down the tone it's not exactly what you had in mind. If this is the case, ditch it and opt for a colour where you love the whole palette. Think of it like picking a partner, someone where you really like just one element of them is never going to work, you need the whole package to be up your street!

In our experience, a brown sitting in the stony grey / greige palette offers the most versatility and sits well with a neutral base. One of our favourites in the studio is Deep Caviar by Benjamin Moore, it actually has a rich, purple undertone, and moves through the colour range palette well into stone tones.

Or, one you will see in a lot of our projects (slightly obsessed with this one, I admit it!) Benjamin Moore’s Black Beauty is the best! It is a black with a brown undertone, and you can use this colour to add some serious drama. We've used it as wall paint, furniture finishes, panelling colours - you name it, we’ve used it there. This colour is most definitely a statement, here’s some tips on its colour friends so you can see how you dial it up or down - Benjamin Moore’s Alexandria Beige, Innukshuk and Pale Oak are some of our more recent go-to colours as you you can go up and down in the same palette, without the colour becoming cream (or heaven forbid magnolia!), instead with this colour family the tones stay stony.

Another great way to select a palette is to bring in a wallpaper with multiple tones in it. Pulling out the light and dark elements of the paper and bringing a paper into your scheme works wonderfully to add in much needed texture. We’ve actually been busy over at The Studio Dean Edit and given our love for this colour family, we have created some beautiful wallpapers all in our favourite brown base. A few examples of gorgeous brown wallpaper to take a look at: Our fabric effect Hali and Kairi papers in Mushroom have gorgeous warm undertones and add texture without pattern. Or, if you are braver, our brown undertoned black wallpapers in Bracken are great friends with brown, Asteria in Bracken is a black and brown interior design masterclass - it's going up in our studio soon too!

Take a look at www.studiodeanedit.com and follow it on Facebook and Instagram for news and inspo!

It is over and out from me on Brown for now, I hope this has helped explain how to use brown in interior design–it is a fine line, but when it works, oh my word the results are stunning, soothing and will feel great for years to come.

Until next time,