Come September there’s an inevitable buzz in the air as we emerge from summer’s lazy days and jump back into the full swing of work, school and life. With so much renewal about, it’s only fitting that green, traditionally associated with growth, energy and life, has taken over as the colour of the moment. Look around and you’ll find a spectrum gracing the walls of countless enviable projects, whether painted, papered or tiled.

Take this eye-popping emerald green bathroom in West London, designed by Beata Heuman. It takes guts to commit to that brilliant hue and she made it sing. If you’re thinking about trying an equally bold colour, Beata’s use of black edging is a key technique to take away from this room. By “cutting” the colour, she created definition, that gives your eye a visual break. Across town in his North London flat, designer and illustrator Luke Edward Hall made green the new neutral. Choosing Farrow & Ball’s Folly Green as the backdrop for a collection of art prints, not only brightened up an otherwise dim hallway, it made the artwork pop in a way that plain white walls never could.

Recently, master colourist Henry van der Vijver applied another shade we love, Benjamin Moore’s Bonsai, to lacquer-like sheen in a South Kensington flat designed by Turner Pocock. Paired with taupe, white, brass and walnut, it’s an incredibly sophisticated palette. The shade is also similar to the rich olive that Balineum founder, Sarah Watson, painted her own London flat over the summer (Sanderson paints #2-31T Hide Lt). If you feel tempted by this season’s colour, these shades are a tried and tested place to start. 

 Photographs © Simon Brown, Luke Edward Hall