Today is Day 14 of a 31 day series on creating and cultivating an eclectic home. For some crazy reason, I have accepted The Nester’s challenge to write on the same theme every day for the month of October. This may end up killing me. Or you. But, I appreciate you reading and welcome your comments.
One of the challenges of creating an eclectic home is trying to figure out how to make all of your furniture pieces work together. It’s a task that can feel daunting, but it doesn’t have to be. Today I am going to share a few guidelines that will make the process of mixing wood tones a bit easier.
When you are working with pieces that are wood toned, you want to keep colors in a similar range. Generally, very light wood colors, such as natural and the light golden colors, don’t work well with the very dark pieces, such as espresso. If you have a dark piece in the room, keep your other wood tones in the mid-range. The room below is designed by Laura Hardin, the fabulous designer whom Rhoda and I worked with at our HGTV/Shaw floors challenge. I love the way she combined the dark china cabinet with the mid-range table and chairs. The dark piece on the wall really grounds the room.
A room with too many similarly toned wood pieces can look stagnant. Whether you decide to mix up the wood tones or paint just a portion of one piece, the break in tones will add a lot of style to your room. In the below photo from a home tour at Design Sponge, you can see that the legs and skirt of the table have been painted blue. It’s that introduction of color that allows the little wooden side table to cozy up to desk.
If you are decorating around wood tones that are installed in your home, such as cabinetry or flooring, you need to make sure that you take those into account. If your wood (or laminate) flooring is particularly dark, make sure that you incorporate some lighter, painted, or whitewashed pieces to lighten the room. If the wood in your home is light, you will want to add some darker pieces to ground the room. In the photo below (via Pinterest), you can see that this busy room works because of the use of color and that the wooden pieces are a contrast to the dark herringbone wood floor.
Are you having trouble mixing wood pieces or any other eclectic style in your home? Towards the end of this series, I’d love to share a few reader photos and help tie some eclectic rooms together. If you are interested in getting some ideas that you could easily implement, please email me at lindsay@makelyhome.com.
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All of this 31 Days excitement made me forget to announce the winner for the $100 Visa giftcard from DAP Products!
Congrats to Ms. Sourkraut, Commenter #5, for winning this great prize!
Wood tones are a HUGE struggle in my house. I think they actually play a role in why NONE of the rooms in this house are finished. It seems like almost all of the example rooms that I see on the net have white trim and our house has medium-dark trim and white walls, so I’m not sure how to make those looks work for me.
Thanks for the tips.
I FULLY realize that this is stupid, but I have a total hangup about mixing wood tones. I have a chair from my great great grandfather that I will not touch…but it’s slightly “orangey” compared to the other furniture in the living room. It sticks out like a sore thumb! : )
LOL! I remember you freaking for me wearing black shoes with navy pants once, too, because I was “supposed” to wear brown shoes. 😉
It seems like everyone has a different opinion. “Nate” always tells viewers to mix it up. Sarah Richardson, oh her HGTV show, explained how you need 3 hits of the same wood tone in a room. I recently purchased a sofa with medium wood toned feet and when I placed it near my dark wood toned chairs, it looks a bit funny……so confusing. I am going to stain the feet darker!
This is something that I think is really hard to get right! I want things to not be so matchy-matchy but at the same time I don’t want them to clash–I think many of us face the same dilemma in choosing clothing as well! I have yellowish oak floors and just painted my china cabinet (which was similar in color) black. I love the difference, and as you said, I think that big black piece will really ground the room. My kitchen cabinets are golden oak and along with the floor, it’s sea of orangey-yellow. I’d love to paint my cabs but I’m a-skeered. 🙂 And I’d love to repaint or stain some of the pieces in my bedroom suite so it doesn’t look so matchy either.
I’m LOVING this series. You’re doing a really wonderful job, and I’ll be sad when the 31st comes!
Hubby and I go back and forth about this topic all the time. He wants matchy-matchy… But I don’t mind mixing it up (a little) sometimes. I love a little black in any room, so I love that black piece above.
Ooh liked the photos. At my home, nothing matches since it is all used furniture. Some light woods, some golden oak and a brown painted huge dresser. It works all sitting on a cream and earth tones rug, with vinyl wood floor peaking out matching the studio piano. : ) Mix and match works for me.
Love your series! Mixing wood tones is a great topic…I think it would be great to delve into it deeper. People are moving away from the matchy look but where do you draw the line? How many wood tones, how many hits of each?
Boy, did I appreciate this post. We just moved into a leased townhouse that was partially furnished. Well, it was totally furnished until we told the owner to remove most of the pieces. Anyway, I was afraid that things wouldn’t “match.”
I decided, “Pooey on matchey.” I’m going to love these pieces if it’s the last thing I do. If I love it, that settles it! Who cares about “matching.”