Wednesday 10 April 2013

Take One White Sofa - Creative Ideas To Bring Colour Into Your Home

Sometimes it's hard to know how to bring colour into our homes, it's akin to myself beginning with a blank canvas for my paintings. As an artist I call it, "White Fright", you stare at a blank canvas and although you may have ideas or even planned it out fully in your head, its still kind of scary to put that first stroke of colour down. Today I want to help you get over the fright and illustrate how easy it is to bring colour into your home and being able to update your look easily without spending a lot of your hard earned money.

I believe that you should start with a neutral palette, a white/ivory leather, fabric or natural linen sofa for me is a safe way to go. Keep your wall colours light such as colours from the Resene "Whites and Neutrals" range.  Strong colours such as blue/red/pink etc for a sofa or wall, can quickly become dated and remember when it comes to purchasing a sofa it is one of the most expensive furnishing items and you will be living with it for some years down the track and possibly it will move with you to your next home.  Eeek! I hear some of my readers saying, but I have kids or I have a dog and so its impossible to have a light coloured sofa. There are ways and means around this, either don't let your dog go on the sofa (who's the boss), or put a nice throw over the area he/she is allowed to sit.  When it comes to children then I wouldn't advise a white sofa, however, as the majority of my readers are empty nesters, then why not white and light and when grandchildren eventually arrive,  plan for lots of throws.

For me a home is about accessorizing  you can purchase the most expensive sofa, chairs and coffee table and place them in a living area and it may be functional but without accessorizing it will not have any life. You have to bring your room to life by  layering pattern, texture and colour such as below and this need not be expensive. If you can sew a straight line, you can easily make your own cushions from short ends often available from designer fabric stores at reduced prices or buy from some of the fabulous small businesses on Etsy.

Illustrating ideas with images, in this first image a static white sofa has been brought alive with the addition of colour, texture and pattern.  One thing I would like to mention at this stage is, DON'T buy a 3 piece suite, they are so old hat now and often the chairs are completely over sized. Put your money into a really good sofa and buy two good chairs that compliment, you won't regret it. and remember, "matchy, matchy" is out!  




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Image sources: 123|4|5|6|78

16 comments:

  1. I love white sofas...they look so fabulous with lots of bright colored pillows! Come link up to my linky party Centerpiece Wednesday and share your post.
    Karin

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  2. Thank you Karin for taking time to comment, white comes alive totally when colour is added. Thank you for the invite to your link party, I most definitely will drop by.

    Lee :)

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  3. Swoooooon! I love love love every room! I also love how anything goes with a white sofa. No pattern combination or color scheme seems to be wrong. It's so much fun and easy to switch out.
    Thanks for a great post!!
    xoxo,
    Kim

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    1. Thank you for your comment Kim, a white or light beige naturall linen is such an easy piece to work with. I love that you can change your colours throughout the year,there is no need to stick with one colour year after year with so many fabulous colours and patterns to choose from and cushions are such a simple, cheap addition.

      Lee :)

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  4. Beautiful! But it's much easier to accesorize white or light colour sofa. I have light brown, mink sofa, chosen for practical reason. I'm straggle to add colour now to my living room, it seems like nothing is suitable for that brownish colour:(

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    1. Hi Anna, thank you for your comment, I am sorry you are struggling to find something that works with your light brown mink sofa. Actually, this would be a good post for me to write about as I can understand your difficulty but there are some colours that work wonderfully with mink. I will write a post about this and publish it later next week so please come back to read it.


      Lee

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    2. Oh, that will be great, maybe I'll find some inspiration for myself. I'll be back:)

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    3. Great Anna, I am usually trying to inspire my readers, now you have inspired me :)

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    4. I think I finaly found colour for my brown-mink living room:) I have creamy cusion with yelow elephant on it, and I realised that yellow looks great in my living room! Just need to find good materials and patterns:) Saying yellow I think more about vintage, golden and pastel yellow rather than bright colour:)

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    5. Oh Anna, I am really pleased, I am actually working on the post and have some other colours that will also work. I have also just bought a creamy cushion with touches of yellow and plum with a Japanese Geisha in the pattern for my own room. I saw some amazing but expensive cushions a few weeks ago and went home dreaming about them then couldn't get them out of my mind so have bought three (all that I could afford for now), I am going to buy another one and replace my two back cushions on my sofa with four or five of these amazing ones. I will share when its finished.

      The cushion sounds fabulous I would love to see your sofa when its all finished. Is the elephant a bright yellow or a softer greenish yellow which seems to be a popular colour in designs currently?

      Lee :)

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    6. I can't wait for your post:) My cushion is nothing fancy really, I got it from my granny a while ago. Yellow is greenish, darker yellow I would say, but cream colour is still to light for my sofa, so I'm looking for some new materials. Actually I found one in Laura Ashley, but is sooo expensive, I hope to find something on flea market or second hand shops:) Or maybe you will inspire me with different colour:)

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    7. Hi Anna, just to let you know that the post is up and running, to hopefully inspire you with your mink sofa. Here is the link (I have updated it since the automatic email would have gone out so please check out my website rather than just read the email if your signed up for that as I added another mood board:

      http://leecarolineart.blogspot.co.nz/2013/05/take-one-mink-sofa-how-to-be-creative.html

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  5. Great advice! That's my motto too - start with a white base, then layer, layer, layer. You've chosen some gorgeous photos above. x

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    1. Thanks Vic, actually image 5 I think has a bone inlay tray similar to the ones you had in your store.

      Lee :)

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  6. Couldn't agree with you more! We are scaling down and have bought a darling little cottage. Panicking about what to do with all our stuff from our old house but that's a whole other subject!! I plan on creating a neutral space so it visually enlarges the rooms but there is already a plan of action to add pops of color. After all, in Chicago, with its many days of grey weather, we need that in our homes! Thanks for sharing!

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    1. Thanks for your comment Kadee, I too scaled down three years ago from a huge apartment overseas to a small cottage near the sea in Auckland, New Zealand. Neutral is the way to go for sure as I have done myself, I used pops of colour by way of blue and white cushions this summer, alongside my collection of blue and white ginger jars. This winter I am planning to abandon the two back cushions on my sofa which came with it, in favour of 5 large cushions in different designs and textures but all in neutral beige/white tones.

      Thank you for taking time to comment :)

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Thank you for your time to leave a comment, I ♥ to read your comments and try to reply to them all.