Your Choice of Furniture

When choosing styles of furniture think of how the room will be used - does your family want to relax, have fun, converse, eat or sleep in it?

1. Choose a overall color that harmonizes with the activity for your rooms and flows into your other rooms. If you’re using green in one room, be sure to add a hue of another green in your adjoining room.

2. Decide how many pieces of furniture you will need to have a useful room but don’t use too many.

3. The style of furniture is important. You wouldn’t want a sofa that’s uncomfortable and small for a family room or have dainty weak features.

4. Upholstered furniture should include some texture. Use color, nubby or smooth fabrics and don’t use all the same textured pieces together. It adds character to a room to combine leather with tweeds, for example. Consider also how it will be cleaned.

5. Choose darker woods for traditional rooms, lighter woods like pine, oak or white for country or cottage and contemporary pieces in metal usually with glass tops. It’s ok to combine styles but try to keep the lines of the furniture the same. A darker piece of furniture in simple lines can be modern.

6 .If you like lighter woods which are warm, choose a paint color for your walls in warm colors such as yellows, beiges and browns or greens. Think of the colors of the earth.

7. Neutral colored rooms need more textures and interesting contrasting furniture pieces. Add “layers” of interest in any room.

Whatever design you choose keep in mind this is your home and it should characterize your style and give your family comfort.