Sherwin Williams invites people to tell stories through color
Sadie Beachy of S. Flynn Design giving tours through the showcase house to guests, highlighting the use of various colors that enhance the award-winning wood pieces of furniture in the makeshift house.
Thanks to the combined effort of many local furniture builders and Sherwin Williams, the annual Ohio Furniture Market Showcase House was a vibrant demonstration of what can happen when form meets function.
The recent show in the Mt. Hope Expo Center and Dean Beachy Memorial Building was inside the expo center, featuring every type of room that might be found in a typical home.
Inside those rooms were award-winning pieces of hardwood furniture designed and built by area craftsmen.
Highlighting each room was the presence of color. Everywhere visitors looked there were accents of color and style that made each piece of furniture’s design come to life.
And for the year 2025 and possibly well beyond, the name of the game in color has flowed from all types of grays being the preferred color scheme to a series of browns.
According to Sherwin Williams representative and color expert Maggie O’Hare, brown is the hot thing in home decor, and she believes that will be the case for some time moving forward.
“Everything is transitioning to earthy brown tones, and I think the pandemic had a lot to do with it,” O’Hare said. “I think during that time everyone was really saturated with gray, which was really popular at the time. I think during that time people were at home so much that they felt that there needed to be more life to this. There needs to be more warmth in their lives, more optimism.”
Because gray was such a popular choice of color for decor for many years, it has been a work in process to swing the pendulum to brown, but it is coming now like a derecho, and O’Hare said it has brought plenty of life into homes and offices as the series of browns have brought on a warmer feel.
“Changes don’t happen overnight. There is going to be a transitional period, so these taupe, fawn and mushroom colors — these really nice, warm earthy colors — are taking over little by little as consumers make the move.”
The showcase house highlighted how easily browns combine with tones of blue, green and yellow to bring out the stain colors of the various award-winning wood pieces of furniture, with O’Hare and designer Sadie Beachy of S. Flynn Design giving tours through the house to intrigued guests.
Beachy said the layered, textured look in the home is going to be the big new decor style of 2025, and utilizing these brown colors is going to help people make the transition from gray to brown.
O’Hare said creating rooms that are perfectly matched color-wise is fading away, and designing rooms that bring plenty of flair is now in.
“It’s moving toward designing rooms that are collected and eclectic, things that are so perfectly matched but are suited to look like you’ve brought something in that was purchased while traveling or were inspired by something fun and exciting that tells a story,” O’Hare said.
She said adding bright colors to the many undertones of brown is a way to add life and pizzazz to any room, noting a variety of red colors for accentuating brown is a preferred option to layering.
O’Hare said matching different red colors to the stain nuances of the furniture wood can create an appealing look that brightens any room.
Sherwin Williams is known for producing its Colors of the Year, and O’Hare said they have put together a series of nine colors on this year’s spectrum, an unusually high number, each of which was highlighted in the showcase house.
“This was our 15th anniversary of our Colors of the Year, so we wanted to do something totally different,” O’Hare said. “We decided rather than go with one color, we wanted to go with nine that really told a story and blended well together but could stand out on their own right.”
The chosen colors for 2025 include Grounded, Sunbleached, Chartreuse, Rain Cloud, Clove, Malabar, Bosc Pear, White Snow and Mauve Finery, with several of those choices like White Snow, Sunbleached and Rain Cloud being longtime favorites of designers.
O’Hare said the assortment of nine colors will be ideal for anyone either building a new home or tackling a redecorating project.
“It all centered around brown, and all of these colors then played off the brown tone,” O’Hare said. “So Grounded truly is our hero color. They’re a collection of bright colors in there that create a bold, whole-home color scheme.”
She said matching these colors or utilizing any color from the spectrum that brings life and joy to someone helps define exactly who someone is.
“Ever since we are little, one of the first questions asked is, ‘What is your favorite color,’” O’Hare said. “Color is a great way to express oneself and interact with the world, so don’t let trends dictate everything you do in your home. Just get excited about personal expression and telling a story in your rooms as you use color.”
To learn more about these colors, visit www.sherwin-williams.com/en-us/color/color-of-the-year/2025.