As a writer in the design field and occasional decorator, I get a lot of the same questions over and over again. “Where do I buy rugs?” “What’s your favorite paint color?” “Can I add metal finish?” And, for the purpose of today’s post, “How do I mix wood tones properly?” All of these questions are second nature to someone who lives and breathes this art, but I think there can be a lot of doubts and unknowns when you’re working on your own without any guidance.
But as always, I’m still here to help you!
First and foremost, let’s establish one of the most important points in this conversation: Yes, you can have multiple wood tones in one room. And while it’s not an exact science, there are some solid guidelines you can use to prepare the mix in a way that feels intentional, not like your house is full of handmade pieces that were never meant to be together.
Let’s establish some rules first, and then I’ll show you through some real-life examples what this all looks like.
Rule #1 for Mixing Wood Tones: Establish a “Dominant” Wood Tone
Think of a wood palette the same way you think of a color palette, where 60/30/10 percent is a great place to start. So, your 60 percent wood tones should be the highlight of your space. This is often your flooring, or any other important woodwork in your home. From there, 30 percent will be your furniture, and 10 percent will be smaller items like frames, ladders, things like that (these can be a mix of both tones).
Rule #2 for Mixing Wood Tones: Match the Temperature of the Wood
Okay, now let’s get into more specifics. Wood *temperature* is a big part of this conversation, as this is where things can go wrong quickly. The wood is either cool-toned wood (think anything with blue or gray tones), warm-toned (cherry, oak, walnut, mahogany), or neutral (white oak, blonde wood, etc.). What you want to do is make sure that, even if you have a handful of different colored woods in the same room, they’re all at roughly the same temperature. For example, a brown hardwood floor beneath a warm walnut sideboard doesn’t always look perfect. For variety, it’s okay to mix neutral wood temperatures with warm or cool ones.
Rule #3 for Mixing Wood Tones: Bring Contrast
There are many beautiful rooms that use the same wood color and temperature in all of their furniture and finishes. But I like things to be a little more eclectic and collectible. If you are like that, I urge you to use some contrast in your pieces, that is, wood tones that are close in color tone or temperature, but some are darker, and some are lighter. Walnut with white oak. Cherry or mahogany with red oak.
Rule #4 for Mixing Wood Tones: Bridge the Gap with Dark-Stained or White-Stained Wood
Sometimes, we have absolutely no control over all the colors and temperatures of the wood in our home. Your destinations are your destinations, unless you chose them yourself. Perhaps you have inherited family pieces that you aren’t planning on getting rid of. Or something whose work you like and you stick with it for a long time. How do you implement everything together? I would tell you: Offer some wood that is painted black, or painted white, or obviously, painted some other color (they like to use black wood to bring that balance).
Rule #5 for Mixing Wood Tones: Use Rugs as Dividers
Most of our homes are not perfectly designed places where everything is chosen at the same time and put together in exactly the right way. Maybe your floors are orange oak or maple, and your TV cabinet a modern brown weathered case. Or your grandmother’s antique is mahogany, but your LVP leans toward the cooler side of things. This is where rugs are your friend. Use them to create a buffer between furniture and flooring that don’t go well together. It makes a big difference, trust me.
I took the liberty of sourcing some images from the world of EHD (as well as another designer at the end to show you something different), to show you what tone mixing actually looks like IRL, because telling the rules is one thing, but seeing and feeling how it all comes together is another. Let’s start with the Portland Project.
As you can see above and below, Emily and the team embraced all the warm wood colors (as is her style and you’ll see a lot more in the photos to come). The coffee table and side table appear to be from the same line and are a warm walnut color. They’re the most red in the room, but they still work well with the chairs and even the wood of the floor. The geometric side table between the chairs adds more of the mid-level tone of wood, but is still warm with a feeling of yellow. A light, neutral wood comes through in the frame for contrast.
Here, Emily followed rule #5 and used dark stained wood chairs to break up all the gray as well as keep things interesting. Here in the Portland Project dining room, there’s a range of dark, light, warm, and neutral woods everywhere.
Now let’s look at a different vibe. This is the living room of Sarah’s parents’ house that he designed for them. It’s totally hot, and very happy. You can see she pulled off the same walnut-y vibes between the sofa legs and the coffee table, but the floor, the secretary desk in the corner, and the painted cupboards all fall into the mid-range tones of wood (and paint).
Designed by Emily Henderson and max humfrey | Styling by Emily Henderson | photo by caitlin green | From: Revealing My Brother’s Ultra-Cozy Family Room (And the Coziest Green Sectional)
Let’s set the mood now. The River House family room has a few things going on in reference to the woods. The base of the sofa is a deep, rich red wood tone, the floors are actually neutral and light, the mirror in the background picks up the tone of the sectional frame, and, in true EHD style, the black stained coffee table bridges the gap.
Redwoods get such a bad reputation, largely because of all our collective trauma from the cherry craze of the early 2000s. But here, in Emily’s friend Robyn’s dining room, the red-painted floors, tables and beams expertly match the dark wood chairs and painted built-ins.
I really wanted to show you some cool colored wood, because I know a lot of people have floors like this designer fariha nasir In my own house. Her floors came with her house, so she had to work around the color she didn’t like. Although I mentioned in the rules that a rug is the ideal buffer for a situation like the above, obviously, you can’t place a rug between a built-in island and the floor. But it still works, mostly because of the contact work being done by the creamy white cabinets.
Rug or not, please remember that even if some of your materials or surfaces aren’t ideal for you, you can still have a beautiful room that works well, and even breaks a few rules along the way.
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If you have any other questions on this wood mixing topic let me know, and I’ll be happy to pop into the comments to discuss it with you all. Next time you hear from me, I’ll be a resident of North Carolina (ahh), so until then, good luck, design friends.
Opening image credit: Design by Emily Henderson and max humfrey | Styling by Emily Henderson | photo by Caitlin Green | From: Revealing my brother’s ultra-cozy family room (and the coziest green sectional)
