Color your home products natural

lFOlOn is important. It can Ymake you feel good, give you status, improve your appearance, change your mood or increase sales if you're a home center executive sawy to current trends.

For the remainder of this year and into spring and summer 1985, color experts see color in home decoration as a matter of taste.

A spokesman for The Color Box in New York says "There are as many color choices today as there are themes." No one color palette is predominating. The Japanese influDon Heller Soles

Story at a Glance

Home colors change quickly with fashion paint, wallpaper, floor covering, home furnishing sections must keep up with trends . . . ways to improve color sense.

ence, French country, art deco, nouveau and Persian/Indian have all emerged along with life-styles labeled post-modernism, neo-classic, pop art and the not quite white room.

As a result of so many color choices, the most important new direction is the addition of natural hues. This is not strictly a white-gray-beige palette, but an emphasis on refined colors such as those found in nature, the colors of sand, stones, marble, woods, animal skins, spices and herbs. Homeowners have found these to be comfortable background colors capable of creating harmonious colorways.

Ready-to-wear influences colors used in the home. The recent collections of the European, Japanese and American designers have focused on a more neutral palette, often layering three or more natural hues. Neutralized grays, pinks, yellow, greens and blues are part of this category.

The palettes (a term used by decorators to indicate color groups) influencing home furnishing at this time include:

Chameleons-light natural colors which tend to change color when used with stronger colors.

Country Naturals-mid-tone naturals, slightly weathered in character.

Camouflages-deep naturals that combine with the above palettes to form the group of natural colors.

Retrospectives-chalky brights often used with white, such as found in gingham, chambray and Early American colors.

Caravans-warm brights used against naturals.

Classics-spicey deep colors liked by both sexes that emphasize, accent and dramatize.

Influential color families for both contemporary home and wardrobe fashions include the browns, grays, yellows, neutralized blues and greens, reds, blues, white and black. All of these tend to be the colors found in nature, shades of cinnamon, hemp, lime, pine needle, rose, peacock.

Designs for pattern materials such as wallpaper are being influenced by deco, Japanese and Persian,/Indian as well as the classics. Architecture and furniture trends influence pattern with the gap between residential and commercial furnishings closing dramatically.

Small scale geometrics such as those found in architecture, geometrics and florals showing the Near East influence, soft watercolor-like large scale florals reminiscent of Monet and Renoir, marble and Oriental designs are coming into popularity.

Texture also is big news in home fashions. Exotic weaves such as those found in Haitian cottons, Berber carpets and Indian madras as well as the nubby homespun products influence vinyl wallcoverings. Textural finishes such as the faux finishes of trompe l'oeil, marble, granite and sandblast flourish.

Country and contemporary designs for walls in the kitchen and bath are available to coordinate with appliance colors in the kitchen and fixture colors in the bath. The classic look of chambray, Oxford stripes, small dots, tickings, petite checks and cross hatch motifs in a palette of soft bright yellows, pinks, red, teal, chambray or navy blue, charcoal, black and white used with lots of white create clean, crisp environments.

Many of these color influences already predominate in the home center market. Pastels are found in the bath sections. often accented with crystal or ornate brass fixtures as well as in the garden section for pots. The natural sands and saddle browns are seen more often than the bright oranges and greens in outdoor furniture.

Wallpaper books offer a symphony of color and texture with the paint section carrying harmonizing colors.

The home center buyer who is unsure of his color selection will find it helpful to educate both his color sense and taste by reading the consumer home magazines, touring home furnishing stores and model homes where the colors of the moment abound. Often he will find that the Tabasco of today is the dark brown of yesterday.

Lumbermen's Helps Students

Lumbermen's, a division of Lanoga Corp., has donated $15,000 to Linfield College in McMinnville, Or.

Scott Roerig, vice president and general manager of Lumbermen's Oregon division, presented the scholarship check. The funds will be used for a student needing financial assistance with an outstanding leadership record as well as an established scholastic base.