With a shift towards cool tones, blues, and dark hues, the 2024 color of the year selections moved away from the warm earth tones of the year prior and searched for quiet serenity.

Popular colors change radically from year to year based on design trends and the national mood. Some years are hot and intense, others are subdued and quiet. If you’re selling a home, painting the exterior or interior rooms in a trendy, popular color can make the house seem modern and up to date, thereby boosting the selling price. As well as being experienced in the entire remodel project, our project directors are highly opinionated when it comes to self-expression through color!

In the month building up to the release of the Pantone 2024 Color of the Year, Freemodel designers and project directors weighed in on prominent paint and design companies’ chosen “it” color for the year that lies ahead. In this survey, we sought out to get honest reactions to these predictions and also wanted to get a sneak peek as to which colors might appear in future Freemodel projects. With eight different paint color selections from prominent names in the market, we were excited to dig into seeing what our design professionals’ opinions were!

The list of highly sought-after colors of the year include:

• Glidden: Limitless
• Sherwin Williams: Upward
• Dutch Boy: Ironside
• Dunn-Edwards: Skipping Stones
• Benjamin Moore: Blue Nova
• Behr: Cracked Pepper
• Krylon: Bluebird
• Valspar: Renew Blue

Freemodel’s Color of the Year Winner:

Once the voting process concluded, it was unveiled that our winner was Behr: Cracked Pepper! This color is described by Behr as “a versatile soft black that accentuates the spaces you create life moments in.” Followed by Cracked Pepper, we had a three-way tie for second place with Benjamin Moore: Blue Nova, Dunn-Edwards: Skipping Stones and Dutch Boy: Ironside. Our technical third place color, and top 5 color over all was Valspar: Renew Blue.

Project director Karyn Selby commented on our winning color Cracked Pepper saying, “I love a ‘dark and moody’ element to most interiors. It doesn’t work in all rooms, but darks are surprisingly neutral and inviting of all styles of decor.” With project director Lara Richmond adding, “I like the soft black for exterior trim and interior beams or special elements. It has drama without being harsh, and is still a versatile neutral.” Additionally, in their commentaries, project directors Dominique Lawrenz and Debbie Lewis agreed that they’d both use this as an accent color.

Our in-house Design team, which includes Lauren Sharp and Brooke Moore, also weighed in on our runner-up colors from their perspective. Talking about Dutch Boy’s Ironside, Brooke Moore remarked, “I chose Ironside because of its deep, moody and sophisticated feel it brings. This color looks to have a green undertone which makes it rich and incorporates a touch of color”. And Lauren Sharp commented on Benjamin Moore’s Blue Nova saying, “It's rich and compelling with an alluring burst of warmth uncommon in blue. This color would be gorgeous on a front door or wrapping the walls of a cozy den.”

Pantone’s Color of the Year

At the end of each year, color experts Pantone pick a single hue that they feel summarizes the latest design trends and shows promise at being a “hot color” for the following year. Towards the end of our survey about the other prominent brands’ colors of the year, we also took the opportunity to ask our designers and project directors about their predictions for Pantone’s Color of the Year 2024. 53% of our designers and project directors predicted that the color would be in the cool blue family, 18% predicted that it would be a green color, 12% predicted a warm orange terracotta rust color, and 12% predicted lilac. While the votes took the predictions in many different directions and understandably guessed that it would follow the blue trend from other brands, only a handful were correct when the grand color was unveiled!

On December 7th, Pantone unveiled their 2024 color of the year, Peach Fuzz (PANTONE 13-1023). This color is described by Pantone as “a velvety gentle peach whose all-embracing spirit enriches heart, mind, and body. Peach Fuzz is a heartfelt peach hue bringing a feeling of kindness and tenderness, communicating a message of caring and sharing, community and collaboration.” With Peach Fuzz falling under the 12% predicted orange category, this color definitely threw our team for a loop!

In the weeks to come, we will circle back to those that participated in our survey and get their take on the crowned color for 2024. Stay tuned!