If bringing a printed fabric sofa or couch into your home décor intimidates you, you’re not alone. It may feel more comfortable to stick with solid upholstery on your couches and chairs, but the right pattern fabric sofa can completely transform a space in a dynamic way.
When well-chosen, a beautiful print adds brightness and motion to a room, therefore making it feel both inviting and unique. Here are some tips for incorporating patterned furniture into your home décor.
Find a Print You Love
Printed fabric sofas or chairs in a room draw our eye, which makes them a very effective focal point in a space. As you choose a pattern, keep in mind that your printed fabric sofa or upholstered chair will serve as the basis for the color scheme in your room. Making sure it’s a print you love will help keep you energized about your design and help to avoid regrets at the end of the project.
Consider the way different types of patterned or printed fabrics make you feel and how they will work in your space. A springy floral pattern may inspire the entire color palette, whereas monochromatic pattern leaves room to add pops of complimentary colors throughout the room. Choosing a more subtle pattern, like a small polka dot or understated striped pattern for your couch or sofa leaves lots of openings to pair it with eye-grabbing, patterned accents.
Let the Pattern Inspire Feature and Accent Colors
When you find a printed fabric sofa or chair you love, let that piece dictate the color scheme you’ll incorporate in your home décor. Use colors from the pattern or complimentary colors, being careful to focus on one color as a theme with a couple of others as accent colors.
Be bold! Experiment with other patterned accessories, from subtle geometrics to colorful animal prints to bright stripes or florals. Look at swatches or samples of colors and fabrics at different times of day in the room you’re decorating. The morning versus evening light may help you discover how well the colors play together.
Ground the Space with Neutrals
To keep your printed fabric sofa from dominating your room, ground the space with some neutral elements. This may mean choosing beige carpeting, leaving your wood floors exposed, or simply adding a few touches of white or gray to give the eye a break from the active colors in the room.
Leather furniture works as a great asset here, so a leather upholstered chair or sofa may be exactly what a room needs to balance its patterned counterparts.
Create a Mood Board of Prints and Colors You Love
If you find it difficult to narrow your choices of printed fabric sofa to something you feel confident in, I’ll help you create a concept board for your space. We can do this online or over the phone. It works by taking swatches or samples and putting them together on a board so that you can see how different patterns look side by side. Having a physical board of samples will help you judge how the light in the room you’re decorating impacts your choices, and it’s also a handy tool to have when you’re ready to shop for coordinating accessories.
