Think back to the wooden bedroom furniture sets of your childhood. There’s a good chance they were of the matchy-matchy variety, and you will be pleased to know that their days are officially over. Now, it’s all about being intentional and stylish when mixing wood tones. Mixing dark wood tones with light wood tones is one of the best ways of achieving this look for your bedroom.
Why don’t I want my furniture to match?
The problem with a whole bedroom wood furniture set that’s an exact match with wood tones is that no piece of furniture stands out. This can make the entire room set feel dull and flat. This is especially problematic in a bedroom where there will usually be a fair amount of furniture for the space. It’s difficult to add extra depth when there is little space for anything but wood tones.
How to mix dark wood with light wood
Deliberately mixing contrasting wood tones is one of the easiest ways of making your bedroom furniture feel cohesive and put together. A mistake that many people make is to mix wood tones that are too similar. In other words, they use wood tones that are “almost the same”.
This is a problem because it looks as though you tried to match but failed. It is far better to instead lean into the different wood tones and choose completely contrasting colours when mixing wood. In this way, mixing woods looks intentional and as though there is continuity in your bedroom scheme.
Think about undertones
Mixing wood tones that are made of light and dark wood will look even better if you manage to match the undertones. If you use makeup, you will already be familiar with undertones and their importance. For wood tones, the undertones are warm, cool, and neutral.
Warm undertones will appear orange or red, cool undertones will appear grey, and neutral undertones will appear beige. It can take a while to get the hang of spotting undertones, but once you do, it will be much easier to match them.
Even when mixing wood tones that are very different, ensuring that you have the same undertone throughout will help the room feel cohesive.
Find a dominant wood tone
Even though you are going all-in on mixing woods, you should still choose a dominant wood tone. This will help the room to feel less like a cluttered collection of mixed wood tones and more like a deliberate style choice. The largest piece of wood is usually the easiest choice when it comes to choosing a dominant wood tone.
If your bedroom design has wood floors, you can use the floor as your dominant wood tone. For example, if you have light wood floors, using darker wood tones for much of your furniture will help your mix to look chic.
If you don’t have a wood floor, you should use your largest piece of furniture as your wood tone anchor point. Most often, this will be the bed, but it could also be a large built-in wardrobe or something similar.
Place accent wood tones throughout
If you are choosing a dominant wood tone, you could also use the same wood tone as an accent colour in smaller wood furniture pieces throughout the bedroom. This continuation of the same wood tone theme picked out amongst the rest of the bedroom will be pleasing to the eye and help the room feel cohesive & cosy.
If you are feeling brave and you have a lot of furniture pieces, you could pick a different wood tone from the dominant wood tone as your accent colour.
Remember, though, that each wood tone should be repeated at least twice throughout the room to create continuity and structure.
Use wood furniture finishes to build continuity
While you are mixing wood tones, you can add some continuity back in by matching up the different wood finishes. For example, you could have matte finishes throughout or gloss. This will make the contrast wood tones feel like a deliberate choice and a put-together set, rather than a mish-mash.
You should also consider using matching wood grain. This is another way to make the wood pieces match without using the same wood tones. For example, large wood grains throughout will catch the eye and make the wood surfaces match together, even with different wood tones.
Don’t forget fabrics
If you’re worried about the wood tones blending together, using fabrics to break it up can help. For hardwood floors, a bright patterned area rug on which the furniture sits can stop the legs from blending in with the wood tones of the floor. Or you can use drape fabrics in strategic places to break up the wood tones. Both will help the wood tones to contrast with the colours surrounding them.
Strike a balance with wood tone
When it comes to mixing wood tones, and especially contrasting wood tones, it is important to strike a balance. It is never a good idea to have your dominant wood tone or all of your warm wood tones clustered in one end of the room with the other wood tones on the other side.
If you do this, the bedroom will look lopsided and unbalanced. Instead, make sure that there is a balance of various wood tones dotted around the room.
Don’t neglect other materials
When you are mixing wood tones, it can be a very good idea to break up the wood tones with other pieces made of different materials and hard surfaces, such as glass and metal. This will help the wood pieces to stand out and not blend, and is especially important if you have wood flooring.
The bottom line
When looking to mix wood tones, going for deliberately contrasting wood tones can be a very good idea. This helps it look as though mixing wood tones was a deliberate choice and make your scheme more cohesive and it can help to highlight your dominant wood tone. When mixing wood tones, you have the freedom to use a wide variety of wood pieces that suit your style and to create a bedroom look that is all yours.
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