Designers are taking two big decisions off their plate: what color to paint the window trim and ceiling. These days, instead of combining three different shades in a room, they’re choosing one hue and using it everywhere. And while you can do this with any swatch out there, bold colors that have an earthy undertone, like this mustard yellow kitchen or this forest green bedroom, have proven to work best. Benjamin Moore’s 2025 color of the year, Cinnamon Slate, is also a strong color-drenching contender.
The brand, which just announced its entire trending palette for the coming year, describes the paint color as a plum-brown. It’s a fitting choice given it also chose a nuanced, or “in-between,” hue for its 2024 Color of the Year last October, a periwinkle shade dubbed Blue Nova. Other than being fun to try to describe, complex colors like Cinnamon Slate or Behr’s color of the year, a red-brown called Rumors, have the added benefit of changing tones throughout the day as the sunlight shifts.
Another great place to use Cinnamon Slate? In the kitchen. Benjamin Moore’s dark take on the ambiguous hue sits somewhere between pink and purple and, back in 2021, we called dusty mauve out as an up-and-coming cabinet color. It looks like we were right on track.
If you want to get a sense of what the paint color will look like, peep RHONY star Brynn Whitfield’s old galley kitchen, which features a similar mauve tone from Farrow & Ball (she loved it so much she used it in her new apartment’s bedroom). One of the kitchenettes in Hotel Julie also has a striking violet that reminds us of Benjamin Moore’s pick, as does the living room in this London townhouse by K&H Design. Finally, it’s purple’s time to shine.
Cinnamon Slate
Benjamin Moore
