How to use trending brown to enrich your home interiors 

It’s time to let go of grey and cold whites and embrace dark chocolate and rich roast coffee tones 

The trend for brown kitchens is modernised with clean lines and detailing in the wood grain. This Ikea kitchen includes Haslarpp and Sinlarp cupboard fronts.

Just as the trend pollsters are shoving colour at us for 2023 (it’s cutesy pastels for spring, folks) along comes the brown kitchen. 

This will seriously disturb anyone who has inherited from a prior occupant a series of dark wooden units with dust-catching beading, and looking to replace it, or applying a paint treatment with updated handles.

Mind you, I’m all for chocolatey accents and warm neutrals around the house, in general, after the brainwashing that brilliant white, clinical spaces were the only chic, and I’m really liking the throwback to 1970s squishy brown sofas playing to our love of that groovy decade.

Besides, who doesn’t want a bit of earthiness to feel grounded in a world of social upheaval? More so, who doesn’t love a snap of dark chocolate, rich roast coffee and a cuddle with a brown teddy bear?

As it happens, a trip to London over Christmas led me to luxury boutique paint brand Francesca’s Paints. 

Drawn in by one of their colours, Love and Squalor (the alluring name is a citation of a JD Salinger short story) it takes the darker elements of brown and gives it a lightsome touch with a rosy undertone which I instantly loved.

Francesca's Paints' Love & Squalor takes the murkier aspects of brown and adds the warmth and lightness of pink to create a warm, modern finish.

Founder of the brand, Francesca Wezel, says that, in her opinion, choosing a colour should never be trend-based but instead a choice of what makes you feel good, at ease and relaxed.

“Brown has a moody, sophisticated feel and adds great depth to interiors,” she says. “It pairs wonderfully with light or bright pink, dark blue and off-white, as well as sandy tones and terracotta.”

She also maintains it’s perfect for hallways and drawing rooms and would work well as a background colour for artwork. So, will this herald the end of art gallery walls saturated in grey?

A kitchen scheme using Cohiba Brown from The Cuban Collection by Francesca Paints creates a warm, inviting space using texture and pattern in the detailing and decorative features.

But she puts her money where her mouth is, too, adding, “In fact, I like brown so much that my living room is chocolate brown and I feel that I am enveloped and protected by it.”

Perhaps you don’t want to go all out and commit to brown walls even with other colours as undertones, so try the stylist’s best friend for introducing any colour in a low-key way with accessories and easily changeable items around the home like table, kitchen and bedroom linens and bathroom towels. Rugs, too, and occasional furniture all make us a bit braver taking the plunge into new colour.

Next Home launches the Parallel collection in February which plays to the warmed-up minimalist look where colour-phobes can get their chocolate and coffee accents in without too much commitment. So, expect velvet cushions and delicate tan detailing in rugs to take the chill out of pale upholstery and add warmth to washed-out walls.

H&M Home goes all out on beige bedspreads and sheets (€15.99), colouring them in with powder blue pillowcases (€22.99) and royal blue throw blankets (from €35) for a spring theme. It’s a classic combination which reminds me of something Kevin McCloud, design guru and presenter of Channel 4’s Grand Designs, said in his book Colour Now: An Expert Guide to Choosing Colour for your Home.

Beige and warm neutrals in the new spring/summer 2023 bed linen collection from H&M Home get the colour treatment with blue accents for a classic combination.

“There is a wonderful relationship between brown and blue,” he states. “Frankly, it is better than the one between brown and green — colours that argue for the same territory on the planet. But sky and earth just seem to get on.”

So, what about the brown kitchen. Are we tempted?

The answer could be no if we were stuck with a repeat of the dull brown cupboard doors of childhood, and anyone looking to do a paint job to update a clapped out ‘80s assembly of units is unlikely to replace dark brown wood with dark brown paint.

The Natural Morocco Berber rug and chocolate-coloured cushion add warm accents from the brown family to this otherwise neutral decorating and furniture scheme. Both are from the Parallel Collection due to launch at Next in February.

But just as '70s bell-bottomed jeans got a second outing for a new generation as the revised boot-leg cut, the brown kitchen has all the potential to be a wow for the 21st century.

Ikea is buying into it with gusto, using varying wood grains and sleek handles in their cupboard fronts and taking it up another notch by using a chevron wood pattern on wall units. The visual impact is almost 3D, as their interior designer Chiara Effroi Lutteri says, “it adds a touch of something special, but still melts in with the rest of the room.”