If you’ve learned anything from our home interior blogs, it should be that contrast is key. Mixing colours and textures is the best way to add depth and an element of interest to any room in the home. However, combining wood tones is a completely different ball game. The process is a little trickier and this can make some home interior enthusiasts reluctant to try it. Still, it’s important to know and quite frankly it’s hard to avoid. Wood can be found in almost every essential furniture item in the home. This is mainly due to the fact that wood is very hardwearing and never goes out of style. A dining table, dining chairs, console tables, and coffee tables are all usually made from wood and that’s just focusing on the dining room. The bedroom is another area in the home that plays host to a lot of wood, from wardrobes to bed frames, dressing tables, and side tables. And it’s not just furniture, now those items need to be paired with a hardwood floor or laminate wood flooring and this is where it used to get difficult…..well, until now. To confidently mix and match you should pay attention to small details such as undertone, finish, grain of the wood. Below you will find EZ Living Furniture’s tips and tricks for mixing wood tones.

Mila Round Oak Dining Table and Sideboard from EZ Living Furniture.

Matchy-Matchy is a No-No

Say goodbye to matching your oak dining table and chairs with an oak hardwood floor in a room surrounded by oak skirting boards. While matching used to be trendy many years ago, it certainly isn’t now. That isn’t to say that you can still have a matching dining room set, because you can, but then you will need to ensure that the surrounding elements such as flooring are contrasting with it.

Alamo grey sofa with Ellipse Oak Coffee Table from EZ Living Furniture.

Start with a Commanding Wood Tone

Take a look around the room you are decorating and ask yourself one simple question. Where is the dominant wood tone in the room? If you have wood floors, these are your dominant wood tone. If you are someone who is looking to buy furniture to complement your wood tone (in this case flooring), purchase furniture that pairs well with this but doesn’t necessarily match. Bear in mind a dominant wood tone in a room could also be the largest furniture piece in the room such as a large dining table, bed frame, desk, or bookcase if you have carpet or tiled flooring.

Athy brown leather bar stools from EZ Living Furniture.

Warm, Cool, or Neutral Undertone?

Knowing and understanding undertones can make all the difference when wood mixing. It is similar to when a person buys makeup. For instance, a nice, red lipstick can have a cool blue undertone or a warm pink undertone. The best lippy for your face is the one that coincides with the undertone of your skin, cool, warm or neutral. The same goes for wood. To create a cohesive look in a room, try to understand the undertone of the dominant wood in the room. In the dining room setup above, the warm wood of our Athy Barstools helps to bring out some of the warmer strips in the wood flooring which also blends perfectly with the warm grain of the wood on the top of the kitchen island. Together you have warm, warm, and warm all mixed together to create a seamless interior.

As a rule of thumb, these woods will pair well together and have similar undertones.

  • Walnut and maple
  • White oak and walnut
  • Cherry and maple
  • Red oak and white ash
  • Mahogany and cherry
  • Mahogany and curly maple

Recap benches from EZ Living Furniture.

Contrast Is Your Friend

I know this has already been mentioned multiple times, but we cannot stress this enough - contrast is crucial. It can sometimes seem intimidating and too daring for some, but high-contrasting shades can also work extremely well together. In the bedroom scene above, on the left, the dark walnut Recap bench and nightstand complement the cooler wooden floors. The contrast shown here immediately draws the eye and adds depth and visual interest. The bedroom on the right show is a visually accurate representation of our previous point, pairing undertones. The warm Recap oak bench and nightstand blend seamlessly with the warmer, similar-toned flooring. As you can see, both look incredible, it’s just about knowing how to effectively achieve one or the other to give a space some continuity.

Maxima Rug from EZ Living Furniture.

Use a Rug to Break It Up

So, what happens if you follow these tips, finish decorating a space and you absolutely hate it? Not to worry, we’ve all been there, and fortunately, there’s a fix. One inexpensive home accessory is here to save the day - a rug. While most consider a rug to be a protectant for flooring, and it is, many will not know that rugs can do so much more. In this case, a striped rug placed in between the legs of a dining chair on wood floors can create a much-needed visual break. If your furniture and floors have a similar tone and they blend almost too perfectly, a rug will help to interrupt this, making every piece fit in effortlessly.

Arno Dining Table with sideboard from EZ Living Furniture.

Once you find shades that work for you, just continue repeating this process throughout the house. This will make sure that your space looks expertly designed without trying too hard. Using recurring wood tones in your rooms will provide structure and continuity and is a sure-fire way to exceed in this task.

For more simple interior design tricks, read our latest blog: Do’s and Don’ts - January 2022 Edition. Here, we take a look back at the most popular interior design tips from our social media channels.

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