6 Tips to Mix and Match Living Room Furniture Like a Pro

Decorating your home can seem like a daunting task. Finding the right furniture and decor takes time and requires some planning. Unlike design rules of the past, now it’s common to mix and match furniture in your living room. Complete matching sets of indoor furniture is out and creating your own design by mixing styles, colors, and textures is in! Read on for some tips to help you mix and match your living room furniture like a professional decorator. 

Choose a Theme

The first and most important step of executing a mix-matched living space is choosing a theme or feeling you want the room to have. This doesn’t have to be an over-the-top, all over theme, just a rough picture in your mind of how you want to feel in the space and how you want it to look. Do you want to use the space for relaxing casually, or are you intending this to be a more formal setting? What colors are you envisioning in the room? What types of furniture might you like to include? What mood do you want to portray? Once you choose a theme, it’s important to stick with it and keep it in mind while selecting the furniture and decorative pieces that will fill the space.

Choose a Color Scheme

One way to keep unity in your living room is to choose a color scheme that suits your theme and incorporate it evenly throughout the space. Neutral colors are the easiest foundation to start with, and then you can add pops of color here and there to create a cohesive look that flows naturally. 

Match Styles

Another way to create a cohesive look with mismatched furniture is to look for similar features among different pieces. Find shapes, colors, styles, or textures that are similar to tie a room together while adding in your unique style. For example, if you choose one chair with rounded armrests, you could find a couch or other chair that also has rounded armrests. Adding in furniture or decorative items that are the same in multiple places is also an easy way to match styles (think matching dining chairs around a table that has an entirely different style). 

Create a Focal Point

Having something to center your furniture around creates a natural focal point in any living room. Try arranging your couch, end tables, and chairs around a TV stand, fireplace, or mirror to help direct your eye to the middle of the room. Finding something that fits with your theme but stands out in some way, like a table in a different complementary color, quickly draws your eye to that part of the room as a natural centerpiece.

Use Accent Pieces

Furnishing your living room is not the only step required to make the room look put together. You also need to add decorative pieces to complete and add flair to your living space. Rugs can be used to create a cozy atmosphere that is perfect for inviting family and friends into. Lay down a rug in front of a couch or underneath a coffee table to define the space more and add contrast to the living room. Tabletop decor, pictures, blankets, lamps, curtains, and pillows are easy ways to connect or contrast colors and themes. Decorate a bookshelf with bowls, plants, picture frames, or figurines to set the mood. Experiment with different textures by laying a throw blanket and pillow across a couch or chair. Add a vase and tray to the center of a coffee or end table.

Consider Scale and Balance

One other thing to keep in mind while you’re decorating your living room with mixed pieces is scale. Scale refers to the proportion and comparative size of objects in a single space. Finding the right scale makes everything look like it fits perfectly. You can easily do this by choosing pieces that are similar in size and using balance to give the illusion that each element in an area is the same even when they’re not. Balance is the equal distribution of colors, patterns, silhouettes, and textures in any given space. Place pieces that have any of those similar elements in an area to create balance. A great trick from professional interior designers is to step back and look at the room while squinting your eyes. This causes your vision to blur just enough to see what sticks out and determine if color is dispersed evenly. 

Once you consider all these elements and put them together, your mismatched living room will look like it was designed by a pro! Remember, interior design is all about experimenting and playing with different layouts and pieces, so it can take time to figure out the perfect arrangement for your space. 

For more interior design tips, check out our Bright Ideas Blog to learn alternatives for TV stands, how to flatten a new area rug, and how to layer curtains.