Velvet

Brown and gold is the coziest of the trend colors this year, and it suits apartments well. It reads warm under yellow bulbs, it doesn’t shout across a small room, and it sits nicely next to wood floors and tan sofas. It also fails in one predictable way: too much brown and the tree looks dull, too much gold and it looks like a hotel lobby. The ratio I’d aim for roughly two parts gold to one part brown, with green branches doing the rest of the work. Brown is the shadow, gold is the light. Place brown deeper in the branches and gold toward the tips, where the bulbs catch it. ...