A House of Many Colors

Or just make sure you choose the right ones...at least if you're looking to sell your home. Here's the piece and the list:

•Yellows, overall, are not selling.

•Orange is popular outside the U.S. but isn't selling well here. An exception: deep corals as accents.

•Purple isn't a big seller, either, but our tastes in the color have shifted dramatically, from "Grandmother's soft lavenders" to wine and true purple, used in small amounts.

Other trends to keep in mind as you decorate to court your home's next resident:

•Granite in the kitchen isn't going away, but Turner sees a preference toward granite on the more subtle side.

•"Case goods" is industry jargon for big-furniture cabinetry, but what happens there also influences what's on the walls in your kitchen. Recently, dark-chocolate colors have dominated, but she says wood is lightening up toward a warm, medium brown. Cherry remains the favorite, Turner said.

•"Black and white is emerging big in the marketplace, and it will be huge in 2009 and 2010," she said. Throw in accents of red, and you'll have a combination with a strong influence in the European design market, she said. Another driver of all things red: the Olympics in China this summer, she said.

•Blue has always made us feel "safe," Turner said, and it's not going away. "Combined with brown, we expect it to be around a few years, and browns are huge right now."