How to decorate with earthy terracotta paint colours

Terracotta hues bring warmth, charm, and a touch of Mediterranean flair to any space.

Edward Bulmer’s earthy terracotta hues are packed full of the finest earth & mineral pigments. Whether you go for a coral pink or a pinkish brown we can help you find the perfect shade for your space which will bring your room to life and flatter the colours, furnishings and art within it.

In this blog we are going to look at rooms decorated in shades of pinks, oranges and browns to show you how to bring the long sunshine days reminiscent of happy times, into your home, all year round.

Not pink, nor orange, just a beautiful soft colour which warms up any type of room! Coral shades have enduring appeal and suit rooms of great scale as well as small cosy sitting rooms. Requiring just the ochres and white, this colour has clarity, warmth and universality. It is redolent of deeper tones that have faded over the years and those half remembered stucco colours from summer holidays in Italy.

“We have been firing clay to make bricks for a very long time and we are used to seeing them mellowed with age. The soft red that the bricks age to is the colour we have used as the prompt for this shade of red. A great colour to eat too!  Our water based eggshell is the best kitchen cupboard paint you can buy and ultra low VOC as we don’t use any nasty chemicals to make our paints.” Edward Bulmer

‘Dutch Orange’ is such a versatile colour, it can bring warmth to any room orientation and you maybe surprised how well it works with other colours, patterns and and furnishings. It is a soft peach but with some strong earthy undertones which means it can proclaim rooms of grand proportions as well as being the perfect farmhouse wall choice.

Edward Bulmer explains, “You could summarise the great John Fowler’s paint schemes as variations on coral pink, lime green and three shades of white. I have most admired the coral pink and here is my homage to him. Fowler’s genius was to recognise that the quality of the paint was paramount and he achieved his shades with coloured oil or watercolour glazes usually over a white base. This is an old technique, seldom practiced now, as we are happy with matt emulsion. Our natural emulsion does, however, have the character of the oil bound distempers he used for basing out and this colour is an affectionate nod to his approach to decorating when few value historical decorating at all.”

‘Brick’ has become a popular choice from sitting rooms, dining rooms and hallways to statement cabinetry but Edward felt that a softer version, still with the same earthy grounding would be a really useful colour to have on our chart.

“Much of the brick in this country is red brick and conforms to a fairly standard earthy red. When it mellows and fades it only becomes more beautiful. Our shade, ‘Brick’, is often used to great effect – rich and enveloping; but when you don’t quite have the light for it, you need a shade of less strength. With this colour we have halved its weight and added some yellow ochre to soften the effect of going paler. In brickwork the length of the brick is known as the stretcher, the end of it, the header – it is half a brick in effect and this gives rise to our choice of name.”

And so ‘Header‘ was created, it really is an exquisite colour, just the right weight of burnt orange which can complement modern spaces and showcase contemporary artworks at the same time as working effortlessly with antiques from brown furniture to gilt frames.

More red than brown, this colour relies on earth pigments and was thought to evoke the sort of colours used to decorate the walls of the palaces of Pompeii. It was the height of fashion in late 18th century London. Superb as a backdrop to prints and black frames. ‘Etruscan Brown‘ conveys an unrivalled depth and light, there are no nasty chemicals, toxins or harmful VOCs in our natural paints.

‘Etruscan Brown’ pairs perfectly with constasting colours such as ‘Invisible Green’ as well as darker wood for a more traditional look.