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You might be eager to make your residential space look light and soft, but often be foiled – at least to some extent – in your efforts by dark furniture that is already in the room.
One obvious remedy would be banishing or replacing the furniture, but this might not be an option for you specifically – perhaps because of a lack of other color options for such furniture, or you are compromising with a housemate who favors solemn hues. So, what else could you do?
Top dark tables with mirrors
You might be tempted to try distracting from dark tables’ dark surfaces by adding accessories to them. However, a worthier alternative strategy could be placing mirrors across those surfaces.
To see how well this tactic can work in practice, there is a suitable photo of a room on the POPSUGAR website. The image shows a room which, despite having black on elements like bookshelves and a door frame, still looks opened up by light reflected off the coffee tables.
By arranging for patio doors to be installed, you could let in more light to be reflected in this way.
Mix black and grey to disguise the furniture
They say that if you can’t beat them, join them… and the same can apply to overcoming black elements in a room. If that room has various electronics – including a TV set – in black, adding a lot of black and grey elsewhere in the space could actually help by somewhat disguising those devices.
However, while this might mean disposing of floral and pastel elements, you don’t strictly have to say goodbye to patterns – which, provided that they stay monochrome, can add elegance.
Separate dark items to create more balance
If you have an all-black table-and-chair set, you could swap out one of the two pieces for a white one to preserve the intrigue and make the space look airier.
Another strategy is to spread out black furniture if it is currently gathered close together. For example, if you have a large dark bookcase, you could still prevent its look dominating the room provided that this unit is surrounded by walls and floor of light colors.
Use vibrantly-colored fabrics
Another useful manner of helping to soften dark wood is adding colorful drapes, pillows and rugs next to furniture of this material. However, make sure that the colors of these accessories are particularly vibrant and punchy; neutral colors would instead emphasize the wood’s darkness, HomeDesignFind.com warns.
Attach framed artwork to the walls
If your home includes a lot of artwork that you would love to put on more open display, the right place for them could be near furniture made of dark wood.
Keeping this in mind can particularly pay dividends if the artwork is bold and colorful. Get those pieces framed before putting them on the wall. This can balance out the room’s overall color profile and so relieve the necessity of doing away with, for example, a dark wood bed.
