The Art of Mixing Wood Tones In Your Home Design
Project: Tremendous Transformation
Mixing wood tones may seem like an interior design disaster, but when renovating or redesigning a home, the right mix can elevate your style in a way that feels more authentic. Curating different wood tones takes the right eye and an understanding of color theory. At Ducy Design, our team has some rules we follow to help our clients learn how to mix wood tones in a way that feels polished and intentional.
Rule #1: Start With Your Flooring
Do you have a lot of light-colored wood flooring in your home? Or maybe you have carpeting but have a few dark wood pieces of furniture that you love. Choose one wood tone as the dominant option in your space, and then use other wood tones as accents. Since flooring and trim can take up a large amount of real estate in a room, it’s often best to start there and build around that wood tone.
Rule #2: Identify Your Undertones
You don’t want the colors in your house to compete with one another. If you have light, warm floors, don’t choose dark, cold colors as a complement. Warm tones work best with warm tones, and cool tones work best with cool tones.
For example, below is a rendering of a space with natural warm wood flooring paired with dark gray cabinetry. You can see immediately how the tones are competing and causing friction in the overall design.
WHAT NOT TO DO!
WHAT TO DO!
Project: Naturally Modern
Our goal is to help our clients see and feel the undertones in their home’s wood elements so that even after we complete a project, they can feel confident in accessorizing and updating the space with complementing pieces.
“A well-designed space intentionally mixes wood tones and finishes to create a collected, not-cookie cutter, curated look.”
Rule #3: Maintain a Balance in Your Space
Since every space is a little different, mixing wood tones in a kitchen might be different than what you’d do in a family room. It’s important to balance different wood tones in a space to avoid creating a cluttered or eclectic look. Instead, try to repeat wood tones at least twice in a room, and don’t be afraid to mix wood tones with other materials to break things up and create a better balance.
Two-tone furniture pieces are a great way to easily mix wood color tones in a room and easily bring everything together. Below is a collection of customizable pieces we love from Vanguard Furniture that highlights how different woods and textures can work together to enhance a space.
Credit: Vanguard Furniture
Get Inspired by Ducy Design
We understand that mixing wood tones is an art form, and it doesn’t come naturally to everyone. Below are some of our recent projects highlighting the impact wood tones can have on a space.
In this example, we maintained the client’s existing wood ceiling and flooring combination but refinished them with a nuttier brown stain so that the ceiling and floor wouldn’t compete for attention. This allowed us to make the rest of the elements in the room shine against the eye-catching, rich wood frame created by the ceiling and floor.
Project: Rustic and Refined
In our Modern Lakehouse project, we created a beautiful collection of wood tones within a single space by selecting a range of light and darker variations of the same wood undertone. In this example, our team chose a dark walnut finish on the furniture because it can easily enhance warm or cool undertones, acting as a neutral color.
Project: Modern Lakehouse
As an interior design team, we use wood finishes to our advantage every day. Mixing the right wood tones can help us create designs to suit almost any aesthetic and create a space our clients love. If you are planning a renovation of your space, schedule a consultation with Ducy Design. We will walk you through the entire process, keeping your aesthetics and budget in mind.