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How to Choose Furniture Color

When looking at your home as a blank slate, it can be challenging to determine what pieces of furniture you’ll need and even more importantly, what color! You may find yourself questioning where to even begin? With a sofa? With paint? With Artwork? While all of these are important things to consider, we’re here to help you feel more comfortable, and confident, in selecting the right color choice of furniture for your home. 

Before you start selecting furniture, it’s important to consider the color palette of your entire home. Check out our tips on perfecting a color palette for your home here or maybe you’re interested in a monochromatic color palette. Once you’ve completed that step, you can move on to the fun part! Furnishing your home should be just that, fun. Your home should be a representation of you and what you like so don’t be afraid to let yourself shine through your interiors. Read on to see how our team at Inside Weather answers some of the most asked questions when it comes to how to choose furniture color for your home!

Should furniture or paint come first?

When deciding on furniture and home decor, you may think you first need to paint the walls to feel confident in your choices, but unless you are painting every room white or some form of off-white we suggest starting out with some of your big ticket pieces first.

As mentioned, your living space should be a representation of you and your personal aesthetic. Choosing important items such as a sofa, bed, coffee table, rug, or artwork can actually help guide your decision making process and allow you to come up with a wall color in a more natural way. Perhaps you opt for patterns and are interested in how to mix patterns. Incorporating patterns into your furniture pieces is another thing to take into account when coordinating colors. Since furniture is what makes a room unique, you want to be sure to choose the wall color to go along with it, not the other way around. 

Where should you look for inspiration?

You can find inspiration for color and design everywhere around you so as simple as it sounds, be aware of your surroundings, especially when you are in the process of designing or updating rooms in your home. Do you love the bold accent chair in a hotel you recently visited? Do you have a favorite flower in the summer? Are there any colors that make you feel happy or brighten your mood? There is quite literally inspiration to be found in everything around us.

Although you can lean on social media and online platforms for color inspiration, we highly recommend searching for inspiration in real life. Design trends come and go and although they can captivate you at times, it’s important to remember that design is ever changing and that’s why you should always make sure your home is designed to the liking of your own style and preferences. A lot of social media is clogged with the same repetitive design inspiration which may alter your decision-making process and lead you to believe that your home has to look one specific way. Instead of focusing on how you want the finished product to look, think in a more practical way about what items you need in the room and furthermore how they’ll be utilized. That brings us to the next question.

How can you decide what color furniture makes the most sense for your space?

By thinking about the function of each of the pieces in your space, you’re already giving yourself a head start on your color choice. For example, if your living room is a highly trafficked area, or if you have kids or pets, you are likely going to want the color on your main piece of furniture selected in a very strategic way. You will want to go with something that can hide accidental spills and messes which are bound to happen!

Check out our Brooklyn Sectional in Brindled Weave baltic blue. This is a commercial grade, pet-friendly, performance fabric which is bound to make it through just about anything looking fresh as can be!

In addition to function, considering mood can also really help influence color when it comes to furnishings. In this case, think about your master bedroom. This is a space that should be serene and calming, and that should guide you towards a specific palette such as white, light neutrals, and pastels as they are most likely to evoke a soothing atmosphere. 

Are there specific colors that go well together?

Of course there are a plethora of colors that naturally go well together, but there is also endless opportunity when it comes to pairing furniture in various colors. If you want things to be a bit more bold or interesting, recall that it’s great to pull color inspiration from things all around you. If you’re in love with color, we suggest looking to fashion as a lot of major fashion houses set the tone for what may have once felt like an out there color pairing such as green and pink. If you’re more of a neutral color person, refer back to nature. Think of trees and pairing green with a brown or tan or look to the sky and pair blue with a light neutral or white. When it comes to pairing colors, there are so many options so pulling inspiration from something you love is a great way to make sure you’re happy with your room at the end of the day.

Should you consider lighting when it comes to selecting furniture color?

Lighting is one of the most important factors to consider when selecting colors for your furniture in your home. Light both reflects and deflects color and changes constantly throughout the time of the day. A room’s truest colors will be seen during the hours of peak daylight however the hues will change depending on not only time of day but also things like weather and seasons. Make sure to test paint samples, fabrics, and rugs within the room, and in extreme cases, in the exact spot in the room where they will be used to make sure you are happy with the colors throughout the day.

When deciding on furniture color, the most important things to remember are to rely on your own personal style and aesthetic, to pull inspiration from your surroundings, to always remember to factor in light, and last but not least to have fun doing it!