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Home Decorating Design Dilemma

Help deciding on a wood tone for furniture

2 years ago

I recently moved into a new apartment and am having trouble deciding on a wood tone to use for my furniture. I'm essentially starting from scratch, having brought no other furniture over from my last apartment. I very much enjoy the Scandinavian style (light wood tones, muted colors, minimal, clean, airy, etc.), however given the apartment's current wood floors and cabinetry, I'm not sure how possible this will be to pull off. There will be a link to an Imgur album later on since there are quite a few photos in there.

I've been doing a decent amount of reading on wood tones in general, and I've come away with the following:

Try to avoid having more than 3 wood tones per area.
More wood tones = more eclectic, less wood tones = more modern
Match the undertones, warm with warm and cool with cool
If you can't match woods perfectly, go with something very different (but still watch undertones)

I've also been looking into higher quality furniture stores rather than IKEA this time around, and Room & Board seems to fit that pretty well. An uptick in quality and has modern designs with a variety of wood tones. I found their guide here: https://www.roomandboard.com/ideas-advice/design-your-space/how-to-mix-woods.ftl and went ahead and ordered samples of those four warm wood tones shown in their chart, as well as one of their cool ones (Ash with Bark stain) simply because it seemed like my cabinets could possibly be similar.

Here are the results: https://imgur.com/a/HlxOAoG

These photos were taken at different times of the day, with/without sunlight/overhead lighting, and those details are mentioned in each caption. And if it wasn't obvious, the living room and kitchen are one large room with no walls or anything between them. The carpet is only in the bedroom.

Wanting to go with a more modern Scandinavian style and taking into consideration what I've read so far, I'm leaning towards the maple (bottom right) or white oak (bottom middle) for furniture, complemented by white accents when possible. I'm not a huge fan of the darker woods, and while maple is my personal favorite, I'm not sure if white oak would be the "better" choice given the rooms. Any advice/thoughts/opinions on this would be greatly appreciated.

Featured Answer

PRO

Patricia Colwell Consulting

2 years ago

last modified: 2 years ago

I will say I hate imgur pics they often do not appear and best to post the pics in a comment here to make it simpler for us to see. If you like light wood tones then search for items that are either maple, ash , birch or white oak. Since your images do not appear on my computer I really can't help any further I aslo would discourage you from getting locked in to a bunch of rules about decor. IMO the best spaces are spaces that reflect who you are and what you love.

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Comments (6)

K Laurence
2 years ago
last modified: 2 years ago
My entire MCM ( authentic) home is furnished in a variety of wood tones from Room and Board. i have a charcoal stained credenza & media cabinet, walnut in bedroom & living room chairs & coffee table, ”shell” stained ash on an office armoire, sand stained (ash) dining table , etc. i think it looks more interesting that matching everything ( though everything is modern ).
Tyler Bannon thanked K Laurence
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mbriles35222
2 years ago
Since this is an apartment will this be your permanent home or do you think you will move again in a few years? I suggest you invest in what you love and will want to take with you. Rugs can help you make them work in a rental where you are limited in what you can change.
Tyler Bannon thanked mbriles35222
cawaps
2 years ago
The maple looks good with both the wood floor and the kitchen cabinets in all the photos, and it fits the Scandinavian aesthetic. It also offers a lot of contrast with both the cabinets and the floor. The only place where I think it isn't a clear winner is in the bedroom, where I think the walnut (bottom left most pics) looks better with the color of the carpet.

The two mid-tone warm woods (in the middle in most of the pics) seems too close to your floor color. And the warmer of the dark samples doesn't fit the aesthetic.

I appreciate your attention to detail in evaluating the samples in all the rooms in different light. People routinely underestimate the impact that light has, and I've found that when I'm evaluating samples, my favorite can flip back and forth depending on the light. And then you are asking yourself, when am I going to use the room the most, and should I go with (for example) the color that looks second best all the time, or the one that looks the best in natural light during the day but ranks far down the list under artificial light in the evening?
Tyler Bannon thanked cawaps
Tyler Bannon
Original Author
2 years ago
Thanks everyone!

@mbriles35222 This is a really good point as this is most likely not my permanent home and would probably be moving after 3 years or so. Will definitely keep the rug in mind!

@cawaps Yeah the bedroom I'm still a bit stuck on with the carpet, the bottom left one is actually the ash with bark stain (at least in the bedroom pics, walnut is the top right on those)! I feel like the maple there looks a bit washed out or something else that I can't place. It would be mostly white sheets for the bed although not sure if that would change anything. But yeah, I realized as I was looking and before I posted here how much sunlight and artificial lights change how they look. Glad I checked those!
Tyler Bannon
Original Author
2 years ago
last modified: 2 years ago
@K Laurence Yeah, Room & Board definitely has a lot of options! I think I'm still just trying to stick to one more tone though, as I've found pictures of rooms with too many tones as being a bit busy for my liking.

@Patricia Colwell Consulting Sure thing, I only chose Imgur since there were quite a few photos. I can put some of them in here though, at least enough to see the different lighting/rooms:

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