Bring a sun-baked and grounded feel to your bedroom with the latest paint trend to hit our design radar – terracotta. As spaces of relaxation, it's crucial for bedrooms to feel cozy and calm, so consider choosing this warm, earthy tone inspired by natural pigments into your room, just as Chrissy Teigen and John Legend have done.
The bedroom might not seem like an obvious place to decorate with red and orange color palettes, but when done right, you can change the whole look and feel of the room. Paint is the perfect way to transform a space easily, adding personality and character, says Ruth Mottershead, creative director of Little Greene.
‘A pop of color is a great way to add impact and an element of surprise to a scheme. Bold colors are also great for spaces with lots of light and can be used in bigger proportions without being “too much”.
Evocative of North Africa to Italy and South-East Asia, this clay-inspired color is named from ‘terra cocta’, which in Latin means ‘baked earth’. Terracotta clay is a centuries-old material that has been widely used for sculptures and pots, as well as architectural decoration.
For a strong approach, embrace the color-drenching trend. This sees mid-strength tones, in just one or two closely related colors, used to create enveloping cohesive interiors that allow color to be a focal point.
It’s an approach used by interior designer Jake Arnold for Chrissy Teigen and John Legend's bedroom – all the walls are painted in the same color with contrasting notes. It’s a way of straddling the design gap between town and country, traditional and contemporary.
'The beauty of color drenching is that it can be applied to a variety of different spaces,' says Ruth Mottershead. 'It can’t make a small bedroom bigger, but it can embrace the size of the space and create something that lifts the mood and feels engaging, inviting, and contemporary.'
If you wish to add extra 'heat' to your sleep space, then do as Jake Arnold has done in Chrissy Teigen's bedroom and combine terracotta with gold or ochre. Terracotta, ochre, and gold are bedroom color combinations made in heaven as they are all derived from natural clay pigments. The grounded nature of reddy-brown terracotta underpins the vibrancy of golden ochre and gold, creating balance within a scheme.
Shop the terracotta color trend
This earthy, terracotta tone will give your bedroom a natural glow. It comes alive in summer sunlight, but on cold, dark days will lend gentle warmth that's an easy fix for north-facing spaces. Shop our curated selection of terracotta-hued furnishings.
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