The floors are down and the walls are painted. Consider your light and fabrics.
If you’re buying new furniture, begin with a base colour; this may be the body of the sofas or chairs or curtains. Remember these are costly items and ones you don’t want to change regularly, so keep the larger items either neutral or smaller in pattern and softer on colour.
Don’t base your decisions on trends for these pieces; you can do that with items such as cushions that are inexpensive to change out. Choose a fabric that reflects your style, is it relaxed and informal or is it more structured and controlled?
Go back to the wants and needs theory and ask yourself those questions around practicality vs. desire, do you need a very hard wearing fabric that can withstand the rigors of everyday family life? Or are you beyond that stage. Do you need to consider natural light – our southern hemisphere light is extremely strong and breaks down natural fibre quickly.
Can it be a light colour or does it need to be a mixed weave that hides multitude of sins? And don’t forget to look at the rub rates of the fabric you are choosing, these rates are included in the fabric composition and in general terms mean the higher the rub rate the more durable the product. Any fabric with a synthetic mix will be stronger and more durable than a pure fibre.
Once you have your key pieces, or if you’re reusing your existing furniture, now it’s time to accent. In each of our key looks, we used the same couch and wall colours, changed the floor and our accent pieces.
Also, if you’re using existing furniture look at whether you can re-purpose pieces from other rooms in the house. You might have a corner in the living area that looks empty, which could home an extra chair from the kitchen table jazzed up with cushions and a throw with a floor lamp behind it.
Here you can play with colour, texture and patterns simply with cushions, rugs and throws.
Choose patterns that match the scale of the room and the piece you are using it on. Patterns repeat on fabric so you don’t want a very large pattern on a small item as you won’t end up with the full effect. You could miss the gorgeous large pattern on the throw, if it’s tightly folded on a small chair.
Create a flow, it maybe an accent pattern or colour that you naturally fall back on, take that idea and weave it through every space. If it’s a pattern, then change the colour in each area but keep that pattern repeating throughout in small and effective ways, either cushions’, shades or a detail in a rug.
And the best thing with accents, is you can affordably switch them up if you feel like a change.
