5 Contemporary Interior Palettes & How To Achieve Them In Your New Home

Houzz Australia spoke to Polyflor Australia to give you the ultimate guide to selecting the best palette and flooring for your home., see below.

A successful interior scheme relies on many different elements – your backdrop, a curated palette of accent colours, complementary materials and, of course, the right flooring to anchor your whole scheme. The grain and hue of a timber-look floor can pull an entire palette together and elevate your interior, so it’s important to select a design that suits your preferred aesthetic and lifestyle. To help you devise the perfect palette and find the best flooring for your home, we spoke to Polyflor Australia about its MiPlank collection of 15 luxury vinyl plank designs, each of which is inspired by the knots, grains and colours of natural timber.

1. Classic Meets Contemporary

Are there any interior palettes as timeless as classic neutrals with contemporary, textural accents? Decades of devotees are testament to our enduring love for timeless, minimalist-inspired colour schemes rich with tactile elements. This style will no doubt continue long into the future and is all about choosing chic, comfortable materials that offer a relaxed, low-maintenance home and lifestyle.

The ambience is as important as the aesthetic, so select noise-absorbing finishes and furniture for a calming vibe. Classic-contemporary is a look that’s particularly well-suited to newer builds and renovated homes with open-plan layouts.

Colour palette: To ace this look, restrict your scheme to a maximum of three accent hues and use them sparingly throughout your interior as pops of colour. For your background, combine a wash of neutrals – black, white, grey and blonde to mid-tone timber – for subtle contrasts.

Team this with: A rich ripple of texture in artwork, furniture and any stonework in your interior.

When using vinyl planks, this style is best grounded with a design that sports a distinctly knotty grain, such as Sassafras or Blackwood in Polyflors MiPlank range. oth these designs come from a collection of eight shades that feature a specially formulated acoustic backing, which reduces the impact of sound by up to 19 decibels. This makes it ideal for family homes and busy open-plan areas.

2. Contemporary Country

Country style – but with a contemporary twist – has seen a recent resurgence, and not only in regional areas. Older homes in urban settings, and even new builds in metropolitan areas, have embraced this aesthetic for good reason. Its warmth gives interiors a cosy, comforting ambience that suits most interiors, particularly family homes.

Colour palette: Blues are beloved as one of the archetypal hues in country homes, so dive right in. Choose from navy to grey-blue shades and offset it with mid-tone timber with a cool colour base.

Team this with: Rough-hewn timber-look materials and furniture with wide, chunky profiles. Seek out floors that are thicker and longer than average, such as Polyflor’s Smoked Oak or Carbon Teak, which are part of nine MiPlank designs that sport extra-wide and extra-long dimensions, measuring 185 millimetres wide and 1505 millimetres long. Now is not the time for slimline designs – emphasise the solidity of your scheme by revealing its inner structural workings with open shelving and ceiling beams. Top off your palette with soft furnishings in slubby fabrics including linen, wool and knits for a beautiful balance between country and contemporary.

3. Scandi Style

Scandinavian style is here to stay and shows no sign of abating, despite our disparate climates. This aesthetic traditionally has a restrained, cool colour palette. However, many local designers and homeowners have welcomed a warmer tonal approach, weaving in homegrown hues of native timber and eucalyptus for a distinctly Australian twist on Scandi style. This is a look that can be adopted in almost any home and is easy to achieve with the right palette.

Colour palette: To achieve a Scandi-inspired scheme, the aim of the colour game involves crowning just two hues as the monarchs – white and timber – and remaining true to them wherever possible.

Team this with: Artwork and framed prints, indoor plants and textiles that offer small colour injections. In our warmer climes, this look works beautifully with mid-tone timber flooring, such as Red Heart Gum or Spotted Gum from Polyflor’s MiPlank collection. Selecting a mid-tone timber look with a warm base to anchor your scheme will balance the crispness of the otherwise white palette.

And when choosing vinyl planks, always look for an easy-to-maintain coating that resists scuffing and soiling. MiPlank flooring features a UV-cured PUR (polyurethane) coating for extra durability.

4. Urban Industrial

Remember industrial warehouse style? It still holds strong, though the look has evolved into a new urban vibe that’s softer and more tuned in to 21st-century living. What white is to Scandi style, grey is to urban-industrial style. This is a look that’s harnessed by a neutral-toned backdrop and pepped up by colour bursts or injections of metallics. Best suited to new or modern homes, this style relies on grand proportions – high ceilings or vast open-plan rooms.

Colour palette: This is your chance to experiment with mixing different colours, or to remain true to an edgy, monochrome scheme. The new urban-industrial look is guided more by a raw, daring attitude towards interior design rather than a distinct colour palette.

Team this with: Metal fittings and features, concrete, timber and a dose of drama or colour, depending on your preference. What’s key to achieving this urban style is ensuring the timber you select has strong grey undertones. Look to Polyflor’s MiPlank Silkwood or Sun Bleached Ash, which have the added benefit of absorbing noise and improving interior acoustics – a huge advantage in generously proportioned rooms or spaces with high ceilings.

5. Commanding Concrete

Many interiors where concrete is the star are championing a chic new aesthetic that sits somewhere between commercial architecture and residential interior design. This look channels new iterations of older industrial-inspired style, but is more pared-back and refined. It has swapped the grungy qualities of warehouse style for a high-end look and hints at gallery-like spaces, while retaining traditionally industrial materials. Newer contemporary builds and modernist homes lend themselves to this aesthetic.

Colour palette: Think neutral tones when devising a colour palette to complement a concrete interior. To nail this new residential-meets-commercial aesthetic, adhere to a palette of black, white, grey or beige and timber, and use commanding contrasts.

Team this with: Metal fixtures and light fittings, soft furnishings with smooth fibres and richly knotted timbers to add lashings of warmth. Polyflor’s MiPlank flooring in Grey Gum and Paperbark are grainy enough to infuse an interior with comfort but won’t compete against the concrete. Both designs absorb excess sound and have superior acoustic qualities, which effectively offset the heightened noise that reverberates off concrete and other hard surfaces.

Whether you want to go with on trend colours, or a timeless classic finish, our team at Hurst Homes guide your through the entire process including your selections to ensure you create your dream home. Just another reason why we are considered Waggas best builder. With over 30 years in the industry as a Wagga Builder you can trust Hurst Homes with your dream home. For a free no-obligation preliminary estimate contact us today on 0438 692 962 or fill out the contact us page on our website.

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