What the future holds
Colour and material options continue to broaden, not only through evolving tastes but also as technology leads to new options. Jenny Wasson, of Designworks Tiles, said: 'There have been big advances in digital printing and that has opened up almost endless possibilities. That applies across not just tiles but also textiles. It also all depends on good lighting to get the very best end result.

'When we develop some of the glaze finishes, we put the product into light booths in which we can replicate every single type of lighting to see how it looks. You might put a daylight bulb in and think the tiles look great, but then under certain other lighting the tone can be completely different.'

It's also worth factoring in the false economy of using cheaper components in a scheme, with warnings over LEDs that start to burn out and provide a 'greenish' colour after a certain period of time - 'if you buy cheap you buy twice', warned Weiss.

Jo Littlefair, director, Goddard Littlefair

Technology has touched many aspects of interior spaces, not least in terms of the ease at which the mood, colour, light and temperature can be changed at the touch of a button. One on the panel explained that they often get asked by clients for an all-singing, all-dancing, internet-controlled lighting system, something which is often way too over-specced for their needs.

'I sometimes think, "You're not old enough to have all the controls!" In the vast majority of cases, what they need is a switch for on and off, and once they've mastered that they could think about moving on! But it's clear that the demand is there and some people are prepared to pay for it.'

Kramer said: 'We are in an era of infinite control of space. The technology is there to turn up in a space with your laptop or tablet and control the lighting and temperature at a keystroke. Why you need to do this is another thing, but it's possible.'

Hopwood added: 'That is nice to have in the commercial world but in a residential context it's not so helpful. I was recently stripping out a house in Bayswater that had literally hundreds of thousands of poundsworth of electronics embedded into it. My client, who has just bought the property, told me: 'I tried to turn the television on with the online controls and ended up opening the curtains.' And what happens if you mislay the iPad that you need to control it all with? Most of the time people just want simplicity, and there is a reaction against over-complicating what should be a very simple activity.'

Bygraves of Hill House Interiors added that another solution for introducing colour to a space could be right underneath our feet: 'A vibrant colour on the floor can make you feel very differently about a space too. We sometimes use dark colour for carpets or darker colours for ceilings, but I think it's often underestimated as a way of introducing strong colour to a space.'

'That's been a good way of getting colour into people's houses actually,' said Hopwood. 'We talk a lot about the Wall of Fear - otherwise known as the feature wall. It can be a good way for people to experiment with colour when they're not too confident about it, but at least it's meant we've got colour back. When you think back to the Sixties, when everyone was so exciting with colour, what happened? We got there but then somehow ran away from it.

'What I'm seeing creeping in now though is a moving on from the eclectic "Shoreditch look" towards something more related to the Memphis movement of the Eighties, and all its bold use of colour. I saw the beginnings of this returning at Salone in Milan last year and again this year - the shapes and colours, if not the "Lego block" form exactly, but it will be quite exciting to see what happens with that.' Kramer added: 'Application is important too. We talk about feature walls and where to put the colour that we want to inject into a scheme, but too often people overlook the ceiling. How many times do you go into an office building and it's just boring white throughout all the ceilings? Why don't people think about different applications for colour in this way?'