We live in a time of unrest, with politics becoming increasingly polarised. The decor response has been to create calm at home, a neutral territory.
Creating a restful atmosphere at home requires a rethink of the colour palette.
If you want to refresh your space, the new shades to consider include pale plaster, caramel, watercolour greens and icy blues, along with espresso and warm wood tones.
Toffee crisp
Giorgio Armani knew what he was doing with his penchant for his signature soft fawns, beige and caramel colours.
Channel his sensibility more affordably with French Connection’s Molten seating, shown in the lead image.
The toffee-tone four-seat sofa costs €1,819, the matching storage footstool, €529 and the swivel accent chair, pictured in a nougat-coloured boucle, €1,169 are available to order from DFS.
Washed out greens
Soho House's Soho Home collection is big on extremely comfortable seating.
The Caleb is a modular sofa with serious Art Deco lines, from its burl wraparound back to its cotton-pile velvet upholstery.
The three-seat shown costs about €10,440.
Also notable is Sergio, a stacked alabaster floor lamp, €3340, all prices are ex delivery.
Caffeine hit
Deep espresso-stained timber kitchens are back in vogue.
Kube Interiors offers a high-fashion injection with its Macchiato doors.
The design, pictured, which includes internally lit cabinets with warm crema-coloured lighting.
Expect to pay between €18,000 and €20,000 for the design shown. This price excludes countertops and appliances.
Plaster casting base
Anthropologie’s Roma is a smoked oak counter stool with turned legs featuring bobbin details.
It costs about €320 fromAnthropologie in Belfast.
It has a flat and functional seat and is made of solid oak. It also comes in a periwinkle blue.
Glacial thaw
While many of the colours of 2026 are on the warm side of the colour wheel, there is one exception.
Glacier blues, the colour of the Arctic’s thawing shores, are front and centre in paint colours and in bedding, as seen here in Christy pillowcases, €21 for a standard pair at Brown Thomas.
Gentle illumination
Era is a soft powder-coated steel frame with opal glass globes in an art deco trefoil shape that will look elegant if suspended above a dining table.
The Ferm Living design costs €499 from Rathmines-based April and the Bear, and works really well with the dry plaster paint colour.
Try Crown Paints Soaring Dove, a putty grey that costs from €29.50 for 2.5 litres.
Hope springs eternal
Spanish design house Masquespacio’s concept for egeo, a Greek restaurant in Madrid, is the myth of Pandora.
After Zeus punished humanity by having Prometheus steal fire, Pandora opened a box, releasing all evils.
However, at the bottom of the box remained hope, a symbol of resilience and the possibility of reconstruction even in the darkest moments.
The key feature here is the 3D printed marble columns whose raw edges showcase the material.
Their form also evokes many Greek temples and demonstrates beauty in the raw.
