Wood Color Palette - Can You Have Multiple Tones In One Space?

Foyer View of Living/Dining Room

I would like to begin decorating our dining and living room. They are open to each other and centered between our master bedroom (out of view on the left) and our kitchen (towards center of picture in the back). We inherited an heirloom baby grand piano that is kind of a medium walnut color in the living room. Do we need to pick walnut dining room furniture or is there a particular wood color (preferably with red tones in it) that is complimentary to walnut? NOTE: Our kitchen cabinets are maple, master bedroom furniture is mahogany, and spare bedrooms are all pine.

Answer:

The simple answer is....NO, you do not have to match wood colors.

However, I treat wood tones in a similar manner as I treat metal tones in a house. While it's not necessary to match all wood tones in a room, you do want to keep them in the same "family", so to speak.

It's perfectly fine to have a room that includes some medium tone woods, and some dark woods. What I would AVOID is having a room that includes very light wood furniture mixed with very dark wood furniture. Light wood furniture often has a very contemporary look, like Danish modern furniture (think Ikea), and in my opinion, I think it looks odd to pair that type of furniture with something really dark.

The exception would be if you're dealing with painted wood. For example, I would have no problem mixing really light wood furniture with a furniture piece that's painted black. Or conversely, I would pair really dark stained wood with a wood piece that's painted a cream color.

Hope that helps! Happy decorating,

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