Balancing Color & Decor in Your Home

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Everyone asks me how I balance color and decor in my home. I like to dot a color around a room evenly to give the eye a place to land. You don’t want to saturate one area with too much color.

Today, we’ll look at how I decorated my living room by dotting a few colors around the room.

Learn to balance different hues against a more neutral color palette, such as shades of brown and green.

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I’d say my main core colors are browns and greens. These are more subtle colors, and it’s easier to balance brighter colors when this is your core or base palette.

These are basically the colors of nature, and we all know that in the springtime, colors burst forth against that same palette. And it’s a beautiful sight, those colorful flowers!

How to Make a Room Feel Cozy with Fewer Colors:

My standard way of balancing color and decor is to use neutral furniture and build on those basics. My couch: beige; the two chairs in my living room: beige. The other furniture in the living room: whites and wood.

Wood brings warmth to a room. There was a time when everyone painted every piece of furniture white. Chippy white, to be more accurate. Some still do. It was the shabby chic phase.

But whites can look too stark if there’s too much of it. Bringing in natural woods raises the temperature a little instead of cooling it off. The walls were already gray when I moved here.

I favor light and medium woods, as I don’t like to go too dark. I don’t prefer dark woods like maple. My woodwork and the fireplace are both white. This house is over 100 years old and was built in the Craftsman style popular at the time. And still popular today!

Know When to Edit Color:

This is more of a personal preference. No two people will have the same experience when choosing colors. Follow your gut.

My way of judging colors I add to a room is to add them, then live with them for a day or so. If it still feels busy after that, I know it’s time to edit or tone down the color.

It’s easier to take one decor piece away at a time. Let yourself breathe around the slightly different setup and see how you feel. If it still makes your heart race a little faster, take a few more colorful pieces away until the room feels balanced.

You can also add warm but toned-down decor, like these dough boards in a basket. That dilutes your enthusiastic color additions! It also brings in more texture.

These ideas help you balance color and decor in a room.

To edit judiciously, you edit slowly, a bit at a time. But if the whole scenario bothers you, then take everything colorful away and add one thing back at a time. That may be easier for some.

Choosing Rugs:

When choosing an area rug, prioritize texture (like chunky wool or jute) over bold patterns to add depth without overwhelming the room.

Select tones, such as cream, beige, grey, or taupe, that complement, rather than match, your furniture. Choose a low-pile rug for high-traffic areas, and make sure it extends slightly beyond the furniture.

What’s pleasing about a neutral area rug is its subtle sophistication. It gives you a canvas to build upon.

This foundation complements all decorating styles. Think soft beiges to muted taupe, depending on how much traffic the room gets.

With an area rug in these colors and neutral furniture, you can bring in any other colors you like. It’s easier to change and switch colors when you have a neutral foundation.

In other rooms, I have more colorful area rugs. But for the living room, I wanted a relaxing space, because it’s where I spend a lot of time, so I chose a lighter shade.

I balance color and decor with instinct I’ve honed over the years.

Where to Bring Colors In:

I don’t have to worry about adding too many neutrals to my living room because of a wall of bookshelves along one wall. I can sprinkle plenty of color there on the shelves.

Unless you take all the book covers off or decide to make new dust covers for the books, you’ll see lots of colors now begin to enter the room. But you don’t want to go too wild, or you’ll defeat the purpose of decorating a relaxing room.

Try styling each shelf like it’s a separate vignette. Sprinkle in a few bright colors. I usually favor red, just to liven things up a little.

You don’t need to shy away from spirited colors altogether. But I’ve learned the hard way that you can have way too much of a good thing. If it starts to look chaotic, you’ve gone too far, so scale back.

Bring color in with houseplants. This has an entirely different aesthetic than a flat decor piece. This greenery will add layers of texture with the brush strokes of nature.

Adding Botanical Decor:

There’s also something a bit neutral about adding botanical decor. It is both nature and color, and they seem to balance each other quite well.

I added William Morris prints of butterflies, moths, and bees, along with prints of just a few colors on adjacent walls. It’s all about balance. When you’re choosing wall decor, keep that thought in mind.

Below, on a separate wall, I have more sedate-style framed prints that elicit a calmer feeling. Landscapes are a good way to do this, as they’re typically more serene.

Consider the frames, too. Don’t go too colorful on the frames. It’s best to use shades of gold, brown, and black for your frames. They will complement the print and allow the wall space to breathe, so to speak.

Walls:

Also, don’t feel like you have to hang every piece of wall decor on the wall. Lean some of your paintings against a surface. This gives you more leeway when you want to switch things out, and leaning adds a dimensional softness.

Layer framed paintings. Set some books or plates against the back of your shelves to suggest a vertical layer of decor.

I think it’s kind of boring when every piece of wall decor is nailed up on the wall.

Choosing Window Treatments:

In every room, I’ve gone with lighter-colored and subtly patterned curtains. I tend to keep vertical areas, such as windows, more neutral. Because those windows are kind of right there in your face.

Too much color there would defeat the purpose if you want a relaxing space.

The curtains in the living room were semi-sheer, light-filtering curtains with florals in a soft cream and green. The living room has three windows, so I wanted something soft in texture and tone.

But with this summer’s intense heat, I took them down and switched to 70% blackout curtains to help with my cooling bill.

In my bedroom, I chose room-darkening curtains because sleep mattered more than the type of curtains I hung.

In the laundry room, I chose blue-and-white patterned curtains that let light through. For the south room in the back, I chose room-darkening curtains because there are so many windows that it heats up quickly in summer.

For the kitchen, I went with gray-and-white stripes. And for the guest room and my small office space, I have buffalo plaids in black, gray, or white.

I still feel the image above has a bit too much color. But it’s a space where the cats play a lot, so there’s always going to be things scattered about.

Colorful quilts sit in the bookcase by the window. That sprinkles in more color to the mix. Which I might decide to edit.

Mix it Up:

You need to have one area that isn’t so strategic. In other words, a space that is more fanciful.

This small wall space you see below has one of my favorite second-hand furniture buys. I love it because it’s taller than a normal table/buffet. It has storage, and there’s plenty of surface to decorate on top.

It ticked off every box for me when I purchased it.

On the walls, I mixed botanicals with a landscape-style print to keep one small space from feeling too busy.

I love using table lamps, and I tend to dot them around a room. The lamp is neutral, but the beads at the bottom lend a bohemian vibe. The tulips suggest springtime, which is almost here.

The patchwork hearts in the wooden bowl add a bit more color. I found this particular wooden bowl at Tuesday Morning before it went out of business. I loved that store!

So dot your colors about instead of pouring them all into one area.

• Choose a more neutral color palette for wall paint and furniture.
• Don’t go with too many different colors for everything else.
• How to choose an area rug for hard surface floors.
• Tone down colorful decor by adding natural, neutral, and wood tones.
• How to choose window treatments.
• Mix it up. But when you do this, remember to edit.

I’d say that lays out all the tips I have for decorating a living room with a bit of color, without going overboard.