Bargains, brightness and bold patterns - how the credit crunch is freeing homeowners from the grip of minimalism...

Reporter Kasia Maciejowska from TIMESONLINE (http://property.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/property/interiors/article5474470.ece)

explains that he minimalist style of decor is emerging as an unexpected casualty of the downturn. Economic malaise has unleashed a pent-up longing for home furnishings in warm, bright shades, for Art Nouveau and Arts and Crafts prints - and even for frills - in the new decorative compensation trend.

Beige, in all its variations, is out, as is an absence of clutter. Comfort and colour are back in favour as people choose to cocoon themselves in their homes, sheltering from the economic gloom outside. As the think-tank The Future Laboratory forecasts, 2009 will be the year of staying in: your sitting room is where it's at.

High society's best-known interior designer, the sartorial daredevil Nicky Haslam (see below), sums up the trend: “There is a lot of joy in my current work. I'm not using any grey, black or brown.”

Dulux, meanwhile, is introducing a new paint range with “sunny yellows and mystical violets”. Louise Smith, colour and design manager at Dulux, says: “This is the year to go wild and express yourself. Since fewer people will be moving the onus is on personalisation and reinvention.”

The Instanbul-based design studio Autoban212 captures the current anti-minimalist aesthetic in which factory-made furniture sits alongside home-made decorative pieces and antiques. The studio decorates flats in crumbling old houses with Modernist pieces alongside reworked Rococo items set against flashes of acidic colour and illuminated with light fittings designed in-house. The influential Andrew Martin Interior Design Review names the Montreal-based designer Atélier de l'Opéra and the Swiss designer Sue Rohrer as two of the best in the field - below we explain how to re-create their style. The hotelier Kit Kemp, co-owner of the Firmdale Hotels group, which includes the Soho Hotel and the Covent Garden Hotel, is rated top by the review. She loads rooms with patterns and textiles. The result is a homely yet upbeat look that is cheery but not chintzy. It's a grown-up way of doing eclectic that looks comfy and up to date. 

Lindsay Cuthill, of Savills, believes that now could be the right time to add quirky touches: “People who are buying now want family homes. Over the next year or two the odd touches that create a personal home might just appeal to family buyers.” He doesn't recommend going for anything too stylised, however: “A total look, like Goth or Art Deco, will never work for most people. Bright colours are fine as long as they could work with a variety of types of furniture.”