![]() Let’s picture this room without the art and colourful styling shall we? This is NOT the look most of us will achieve with a matching sofa, drapes and area rug. Also the room is expertly styled, layered with pretty colours and interesting objects, and includes a great piece of art that pulls in colour. In the image above, the curtains and rug do match the sofa, but notice they the curtains are not directly BEHIND the sofa. ![]() Let’s look at this successfully pretty room with the dark neutral sofa again. That’s why I’m suggesting these easy guidelines to keep you from the pitfalls of overly safe decorating which will only leave you underwhelmed or worse. Not all of us are comfortable with a playful approach to decorating. Textiles are where you can add contrast, trendy pattern or colour and make things interesting! While it’s wise to be conservative and choose very simple tile and flooring, in other words, hard finishes that require major work and expense to replace–upholstery, area rugs, drapery and textiles will need to be recovered or replaced at least every decade or so. Safe decorating is riskier than playful decorating “Would buying this (rug, curtain, sofa, ottoman, chair) in the same matching neutral be a missed opportunity for creating contrast?”īecause even if you aren’t comfortable with adding colour to your room, contrast between light and dark elements is necessary to make any room come to life.Īnd if you’re starting with a practical dark neutral sofa, this means your area rug and drapes will likely need to be LIGHT. Remember this the next time you need to choose a colour: The first key principle is you need to create is CONTRAST If you stick to some very SIMPLE rules, it’s not as hard as you may think to create a fresh and pretty room. So do not assume you need to be wealthy and hire a decorator to achieve a better look. If you have nothing in your living room, waving around a 9’x 9′ sample will not help you, unless you are matching it to an existing rug (for example) and if that’s the case then you should definitely bring a sample home.īut if your living room is empty, you’re almost safer to buy a ‘colour’ off the showroom floor than a neutral since, as you know from reading this blog, a sofa that looks ‘neutral’ in the showroom, based on their light and based on the items they chose to showcase it will not look ‘neutral’ anymore in your home.įor example, if you buy a ‘linen’ sofa in a showroom with a dark colour on the wall behind it, it will seem ‘neutral’ there, but when you bring that sofa home and place it against a white wall for example, that’s where it might look pink beige or green beige or whatever undertone it happens to be. If you’ve ever ordered a sofa off the showroom floor, had it delivered to your home, only to discover it looks completely different in YOUR lighting, that’s because you didn’t have a plan.Īnd, common advice will be to always take a sample home to see what it looks like in your living room, but if you don’t have a plan to begin with, this advice won’t make any sense. Why your sofa looks different than it did in the showroom Dark neutrals are “practical.” They don’t show dirt (the worst reason in my opinion to live every day in a drab room).Īnd this, my friends, is how depressingly drab rooms are constantly being born.Especially if you have no decorating plan. Getting everything in the same “safe” and “versatile” neutral seems prudent.It doesn’t take a lot of planning or thought. You simply buy curtains in the same grey and check them off your list. If you got your sofa recently in the trendy neutral of the moment, chances are, at the same big box stores there are ample “matching” rugs and curtains.“Matching” is the most basic decorating principle.I think this happens over and over for a few reasons: When someone is unsure which colour to choose, it seems easiest to just keep choosing the same colour. She replied, “Well before this I had a burgundy sofa with burgundy drapes, so I just did the same thing.” ![]() Since I see this every day, I thought I’d ask the obvious question: “Why did you buy matching curtains?” It was a sea of taupe that she had tried to brighten up with a small turquoise area rug and a few cushions. Recently, I arrived at a design consultation where my client had mid-tone taupe carpeting, a dark taupe sofa and curtains that matched. But if you are not in love with your space and you’re not sure why, or you need to furnish your living room and don’t know where to start, read on for the surest strategy for creating a pretty living room. Chances are you already do these things instinctively. If you are a good decorator, you probably won’t need guidelines for how to decorate around a dark neutral sofa. This advice is for the decorating challenged.
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