For many people mixing and matching wood tones is too daunting too consider but you can, and should, mix wood tones. It adds depth to a room, and after all, a forest has many types of trees.
Here are 5 things to help you from feeling overwhelmed with the thought of mixing wood tones in your home.
Start with the Floor
The foundation for mixing and matching starts with your floor. Wood floors, whether solid hardwood, engineered or luxury vinyl, are a popular and versatile flooring option for both their practicality and good looks. Since it is a large surface, the tone of the floor will have a big impact on the visual perspective of space, sensory reach and conditions of the whole room. The hardwood floor tone should be your dominant wood tone and you can work from there.
Here is a simple guide to identifying your main tone is:
Is your floor... Red, orange, or yellowish? These are warms.
Slightly ashy-looking, with tinges of grey, blue or green? These are cools.
Not really grey or yellow? You have a more neutral floor.
Consider the Undertones
Once you have the main tone, you can easily focus on undertones or supporting tones. Most designers will suggest using only one to two supporting tones to keep things from getting too busy. You can keep things feeling consistent by sticking with all wood tones that match your dominant tones temperature. So for warms think about walnut and oak, or for cool tones consider grey stains or ash.
Consider Your Layout
Once you have an idea about your complementary tones you can think about mixing them. With larger furniture or wood focal elements, placement is important. Wood pieces that are similar in color and too close to one another in a room will kill your designer mix and match look. Instead try to place various wood tones throughout the room to create balance. This ensures that one side of the room doesn't appear ‘heavier’ than the other and avoids the dreaded monotone.
Be Consistent
This is part of the mix and match look that is better when you match. You want to make sure that your floor and furniture pieces play nicely together with a consistent design style. Finding pieces that complement one another well, regardless of wood tone, helps the differences in the wood become less noticeable. When you opt for pieces that have a subtle contrast with your floor, the focus isn’t the tones themselves, but the overall design of the space.
Don’t Go Overboard
As with many things, you can get too much of good thing when you use too many tones. Stick with only two or three different wood tones in a space and you will be fine. More than three tones and you risk creating a room experience that is dizzying and disjointed feeling. A good tip is for furniture that us sitting directly on your hardwood floor, try to keep them in the same color family.
Still worried about how to get the best looking floor for your mix and match style? Why not speak with one of our hardwood floor experts who can guide you through the process of selecting the perfect floor color and look for your project.
