Inside Moves Out
As if retailers don’t already have enough products to worry about, Gehringer says you should pay attention to the color as well as the textures used on interior products.
Based on a color matrix Metaphor developed to track color trends in a variety of building products, Gehringer thinks that purple-influenced browns will be more popular in 2014, along with gray-influenced colors, and that the beige color family will make a comeback.
The bigger picture is that homeowners are increasingly interested in design themes and in unifying interior and exterior colors. “The trends on the interior are moving outside,” Gehringer says. “Consumers are looking at how they get these colors, these finishes, these profiles, these forms to all come together.”
Other Emerging Trends
In addition to the migration of indoor styles to the outdoors, several other trends are also on the rise.
As the outdoor-room theme blossoms, there is more cross pollination between the furniture and decking industries, and the emergence of “hybrid showrooms” that cater to consumers who want to coordinate outdoor products, including decking and railings, with the rest of the home.
Interest in decking and railing made to look like tropical hardwoods is continuing, with growing interest in rustic-looking materials, such as decking that gives the appearance of hand-scraped boards.
