4 Ways to Decorate Around Your Charcoal Sofa

While grey is still dominating the colour design trends, you may have purchased a charcoal sofa or a grey couch. Most people see grey as a neutral, but you may be wondering what colours go with a grey sofa. And if all this grey is making your room feel blah, here’s how to fix it with my top 4 ways to decorate around your charcoal sofa.

Today’s post is about decorating with charcoal, really important to know since it’s such a popular neutral right now!

If you have a charcoal sofa or a grey couch — just like during the brown trend, when most neutral-loving shoppers purchased a brown one — it’s time for me to help you bring this colour to life.

Why?

Because a room done entirely in charcoals and greys without a ton of white and light floors to complete the picture is not a happy room at all.

I would rather that you paint your walls charcoal and choose a sofa in your favourite colour, like this yellow one:

Interior Design by Maria Killam

But if you already have a grey sofa or couch and you’re worried that it’s making your living room feel cold, I’m going to show you right now how to fix it.

I predict yellow will eventually be back in full force, just like it was before the brown trend when I specified it constantly. For many years now, though, I could probably count on one hand how many people ask me for yellow.

But I’m patient, my lovelies! Just wait, it’s coming!

In the meantime, here’s how to decorate around your charcoal sofa:

1. Balance the Accent Colour

You need three gradations of an accent colour when you’re decorating. This means a room that looks the most pulled together has small, medium, and large gradations of the colour.

The living room below is a perfect example of what I’m talking about. There’s simply way too much grey, it makes the bitty red pillows look like a complete afterthought.

It’s a pretty room, but I would have replaced the red pillows with white ones and layered a black-and-white zebra rug on the floor to repeat the white and keep this palette monochromatic.

{via Pinterest}

In this room, the small yellow can be found in the paintings, the medium in the throw pillows, and the large in the area rug:

 Susan Hargraves

Here’s Charcoal plus pink reapeated in the pillows, lamps and artwork.

Pink + Grey. {Cullman Kravis}

Read more: Here’s another client example where we transformed her charcoal sofa with colour

2. Introduce natural tones into your home decor

House & Home

Here in this living room (above), the pillows, artwork, and greens on the coffee table provide the small accent; the chairs provide the medium accent; and the grey-green fireplace provide the large accent:

Also, the sisal area rug reads neutral here, and  adds much needed warmth. If the room had a charcoal and white area rug, it would look less coordinated and intentional.

3. Try Colour Blocking Instead of Adding Tiny Colours Around the Room

{via Pinterest}

Here, we have a charcoal/black sofa with two green chairs. There’s visually almost as much green in this room as charcoal, I did the same thing with the yellow and pink in my living room (below) by just keeping the raspberry in the drapery.

Interior Design by Maria Killam

That’s it.

So, your decorating colour palette looks colour blocked instead of bitty and choppy.

There’s a bigger commitment to colour in both rooms. The green chairs in the first image and the raspberry drapes in mine.

4. Your Walls Can Be Colourful or Pale -OR- Your Floors Should Be Light 

If you start searching for magazine photos of charcoal or black sofas, you won’t find one in Veranda or House Beautiful (for example) without the contrast of lighter walls, floors or the addition of coloured walls over charcoal paint. Here are some examples to illustrate what I mean.

Here the walls are colourful instead of grey. {HousetoHome}

If it’s too late to install light floors, chose a light area rug like this one {via Better Homes & Gardens}

BONUS TIP: You Are Not the Exception

It’s a rare space that works in entirely charcoal on charcoal without a lot of white, perhaps lots of big windows, etc, so just know that if you do choose a charcoal sofa, that is pretty much the end of your charcoal quota.

Most people think that buying a neutral sofa will give them the most flexibility just by changing out pillows. But the problem with that is that the room will still not look finished as I’ve just shown you.

When clients tell me that they get bored easily and like to switch things up, it usually means they have never felt like the room had a look and a feel, so they constantly feel like it needs ‘freshening.’

Now, this is not true for everyone, but in my experience, that is usually what’s missing.

Atmosphere is created with lighting first, then the decorating, and finally with the correct wall colour. You need all three for your room to come alive.

If you’d like to transform the way you see colour. You can register here.

Susan Hargraves attended my Specify Colour with Confidence™ Academy two years ago, and this is what she said:

“What Maria Killam doesn’t know about colour, no one needs to know! In fact, after taking her True Colour Expert training a few years ago, following her blog and reading all of her books, I’m not sure there is anything Maria doesn’t know about colour!!!

And here’s the best part: everything she knows, she shares, making you an expert too. Although I have always had a flair and passion for colour, before taking Maria’s training I entered colour consults with a bit of fear and trepidation, not sure if the “magic” would always be there, or if it might lead to some colossal mistakes.

Maria’s systematic approach gave me a “can’t fail” framework that made me a more confident and competent designer. If you’re interested in working with colour, do yourself a huge favour and take Maria’s training.”

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