It’s important to choose the right flooring for your home, but that’s only the first step. Every wood flooring choice opens the door to a plethora of design opportunities. Your warm-toned, cabin-grade hardwood creates the perfect atmosphere to match with plush rugs, stone fireplaces, and other cozy décor. On the other hand, cool-toned wood provides the perfect foundation for a sleek, modern design. No matter how you want to decorate, you can find a wood flooring option to match.
However, making sure your furniture and other décor items fit with your floors can present a challenge. Make sure you end up with a room that looks and feels great with these tips for matching wood floors with furniture.
Pay Attention to Undertones
Every wood flooring option has a warm, cool, or neutral undertone that defines the space. Use this to your advantage by matching your décor to the wood’s undertone. Warm tones—woods with yellow, orange, or red colorings—mix well with other warm-toned pieces. In other words, if your flooring has red undertones, most red-toned pieces of furniture will also look great in the room. The same concept applies to cool-toned wood, which comes in various shades of gray. Neutral undertones, on the other hand, will match with both warm and cool tones.
Keep in mind that matching undertones can vary greatly. A light-colored floor with red undertones will still match deep, dark wood furniture with the same red tones.
Lean into Rustic…
Your floor serves as the foundation of the room, which means it influences the look and feel of everything within that space. Lean into that by designing the room around the kind of atmosphere your floor creates. Warm-toned floors with visible grain patterns or bold character markings add a traditional, comfortable feel to your home. Bold textures and soft, plush pieces create a space that exudes warmth and coziness. If you want a living room that immediately puts guests at ease or a bedroom that provides a satisfying, homey feel, then rustic is the way to go. When you create an overall theme within the room, you keep every décor option in line so that nothing feels wrong or out of place.
…or Go Modern with Metal
Wood floors are traditional additions to any home, but that doesn’t mean you have to stick with traditional décor. Modern engineered wood flooring contrasts brilliantly with metal accents and furniture pieces. You can create a unique industrial vibe with pieces that incorporate bronze, steel, or other raw materials. You might also use distressed metals to add character to the room. Lighter-colored floors match well with dark furniture pieces, and vice versa. Glass pieces and other unique décor items also fit beautifully into a modern room. No matter what kind of style you build in a room, make sure you can match your flooring and furniture to the look.
Contrast Is Key
Contrast is one of the core rules of any style or décor, making it one of the most important tips for matching wood floors with furniture. Darker wood floors can make lighter wood furniture pop and look extremely satisfying. Alternatively, lighter wood floors provide the perfect balance for darker furniture pieces. Without contrast, a room can appear monotonous, and smaller pieces easily become lost in the space. You can also use contrast to create a focal point in the room. For example, in a dining room, the table should be the center of attention. You can make your focal point stand out by having it contrast with the flooring and other pieces in a room—such as having a dark wood table on lighter-colored floors.
Mixing textures also creates contrast. If you have smooth, polished wood floors, you can balance them with softer, rounder furniture that adds to the texture of the room.
Experiment with Matching
Remember that there are no hard and fast rules of home decoration. A choice that makes sense in one room might not work in another room. If you don’t want to focus on creating contrast in a room, look for stylish ways to match wood tones. Neutral colors are always safe bets no matter what kind of wood flooring you have. If you want bolder choices for your furniture, try finding pieces with wooden legs that match the color of your floors. The wood portion of the furniture will complement the floor, while the other materials will stand out beautifully. This creates an overall balance that helps the piece fit with the rest of the room without blending in too much.
However, you should try to make similar pieces match each other. For example, a sofa and a coffee table can balance each other out, but a sofa that contrasts too much with the nearby armchair will look out of place. You should also keep in mind your overall color scheme. Too many dark pieces will need lighter fabrics and wall colors to brighten up the space.
Consider the Weight of the Room
Just as you should pay attention to your overall color scheme, it’s also important to keep the weight of the room in mind. When you have lighter wood floors, you don’t want larger, sturdier furniture pieces to overpower them. Similarly, darker floors can swallow slimmer accents and furniture. A good rule of thumb is that more delicate pieces of furniture go well with lighter floors, while heavier pieces match better with dark woods. This will help you preserve balance in the room so that everything gets its chance to shine within the space.
Add Flair with Smaller Décor
Is your design missing something? Smaller pieces can add the perfect little touch to tie everything together. Add more color to the room with decorative pillows or blankets. Create some extra contrast with a well-placed rug. Wall decorations, shelf décor, and other personal touches can also add character to a room. Whether you’re using them to create more contrast or to tie everything together, these little details can add the perfect flair to a room. Experiment with these smaller details to create the best design for your home.
