They’re rolling out the red carpet for red, a color that is popping up in home furnishings categories from room decor to appliances.

“It’s one of four featured colors in our April color issue,” said Brooke Stoddard, style editor at House & Garden magazine. (The other colors are pink, blue and purple.) “We are fascinated with the resurgence of cranberry, raspberry, and strawberry.”

AP Photo IT'S NOT FOR THE SHY or restrained, but red is showing up as more than an accent color in new home decor. Connecticut antiques dealer Angus Wilkie used shiny red on the cabinets, moldings and window trim in the kitchen of his country home.

Like other trendspotters, magazine editors shop the world for what’s new. For 2003, H&G has found red in a broad mix of objects such as French dinnerware and crystal tumblers, Italian leather desk accessories, and small kitchen appliances from the United States.

Inspired by all the red apparel and home furnishings merchandise they saw in Paris and the Far East, merchandisers at Storehouse, based in Atlanta, have decided to play up the color in a big way at the chain’s 63 stores. The offerings include red leather easy chairs and sectionals upholstered in solid red fabric, a Chinese red lacquer dining table and matching chairs along with the usual pillows, rugs and other accessories.

“We saw red everything in Paris — upholstery, home textiles, bed linens, even glassware and beautiful lampshades,” said Caroline Hipple, Storehouse president. “We said ‘let’s bring it into our stores in all the categories. In case goods, it’s not a complete suite — we’re not that brave.”‘

Why red now? Color trend analyst Leatrice Eiseman says red’s popularity follows a recent spate of fashionable red apparel but also relates specifically to home decorating trends, including the rise of traditional style, in which red has always been at home, and of ethnic decorating. Red is an important color in Hispanic, African and Asian cultures and its use in home decor reflects American ethnic diversity.

“This color trend manifests itself across the whole spectrum of red, including Chinese red, raspberry red, cranberry and even persimmon and russet,” Hipple said. The variety of available reds is an aspect of its popularity.

Of course, there are people who love red, whether it is currently in fashion or not. One of them is Angus Wilkie, whose country home has a really red kitchen.

“When we bought the house, there was some red cabinetry and we went to town with it, painting a lot more red than was there before and also painting the library red,” said Wilkie, an antiques dealer in Lyme, Conn., and New York.

Kitchen cabinets, moldings, window trim and a staircase leading to a second floor bedroom and bath are red, and so is the Sub-Zero fridge. The cabinets are full of red bowls and refrigerator ware. Around the room, other touches of red abound, including red and white dishtowels, a red toaster, red knobs on the six-burner range and even copper pots and cooking utensils.

“If you are going to have red, it might as well be eye-popping,” said Wilkie’s housemate, architect Len Morgan, who supervised the renovation project. “We used a high gloss paint called Tulip Red by Schreuder through Fine Paints of Europe. It has close to a mirror-like finish and looks a lot like red nail polish.”