How to Mix and Match Sofas and Chairs

We all love a gorgeous catalog. But ordering the entire room as it is can often feel kind of boring and sterile. Sometimes those catalog rooms feel a bit too perfect. So why not consider mixing and matching your ideal living room?

If you’re a fan of a unique look and have ideas you wish to recreate, this one’s for you! But mixing and matching sofas and chairs can be intimidating at first. After all, you want your living room to look and feel just right. Don’t worry, we got you covered! Here are some tips on mixing and matching your living room furniture!

Focus on the Scale of the Furniture

One of the most important things to note when you’re looking to mix and match your furniture is the scale of the furnishings. You should look for sofas and armchairs that are roughly the same height.

If the height of your furniture doesn’t match, it will create an awkward space for conversation since the people sitting there won’t be at the same level. To avoid this tension, you might want to consider measuring the furniture beforehand, so you can have a rough estimate before buying the entire piece.

The same thing goes for the seat depth of your furniture. Chairs that have a bigger seat depth allow for a casual, more comfortable ambiance,  while chairs that aren’t as deep create more of a formal mood. It’s usually best to pick one or the other, so you can create a room that feels consistent.

The Rule of Twos

Since making sure that both your seat height and depth are roughly the same is half the work, you can make sure to continue with the next step: applying the rule of twos. This means that there have to be at least two similarities between your sofa and your armchairs either: shape and style, color and texture, or the height of the back of the chair.

Here they decided to match the color of the sofa with this gorgeous wicker armchair, creating a glorious look. And alongside that, the back height is also the same. That’s why even if these two are completely different stylewise, they fit so beautifully in a living room.

Think of the Design Styles

Different design styles clash with each other. Putting a sleek contemporary sofa with an ornamented victorian armchair will look very weird. For a more cohesive look, consider pairing up similar styles.

One of the best ways to ensure your mix-and-match furniture looks good is to take note of its shape. Is your armchair more on the round, organic side? Or is it sharp and modern? Usually, going for similarly shaped furniture helps create a more cohesive look.

But if you love two completely different styles for your sofa and armchairs and want to feature them both in your room, consider using colors and accessories to help them fit in better with each other,

Use Colors to Create a Coherent Look

Choosing the right colors is so important in interior design. Oftentimes your color choice will make or break the entire look of your room. That’s why it’s important to have a color scheme you stick to.

You can go about this in a couple of ways. A lot of people like to pick out a neutral, or a base color or two, and then choose a fun accent color that’s on the bolder side. It’s an easy way to create color cohesion, and tie everything in quite nicely.

Here they decided on a gorgeous brown monochrome look. The loveseat and the armchairs are all in different shades of brown which work beautifully together, creating a gorgeous, comfortable yet chic look. Even though they’re mismatched the color ties them all together.

Don’t forget patterns! Patterns and textures are super important and can also be used to subtly tie in a seemingly mismatched room.

Decorate the Room Around Your Favorite Piece

Another fantastic strategy for decorating your room is to pick out a piece you absolutely love. People often pick out the biggest piece of furniture, such as a sofa or a large table, making it the centerpiece of the room, but you don’t have to.

Take a good look, and note the most important qualities of your piece, again: the shape, style, color, scale and texture. And then pick out what you like the most, and keep those in mind when shopping for the rest of the furniture. 

Here, they did a fantastic job choosing this velvet couch in deep emerald tones for their centerpiece. They decided to continue with the gorgeous velvet and picked out a chair with the same texture to match. The other chair, even though differently textured, has roughly the same back height and shape as the couch so it still pairs quite well!

Accessories Help Create a Unified Room

Now let’s not forget the importance of good decor. Picking out stylish accessories that work well with the furniture can elevate the entire look.This works especially well if your furniture already came with some accessories, as you can just easily swap them from one set to another. This is the easiest way to create a unified look!

If you have a bold color scheme, one of the easiest way to match your chairs and sofas is to add a couple of throw pillows. If your have a blue couch like this one, and a bright yellow chair, opting for a couple of yellow throw pillows on the couch really helps create cohesion between the two.

In Conclusion

Mixing and matching isn’t all that hard when you know the ground rules. Don’t be afraid to pull out your measuring tape and dot down the dimensions, as it can make everything easier. Think about what type of look you want to accomplish, and what it consists of.

And then as long as you shop deliberately, with the scale, shape and color in mind, you can’t go wrong. Good luck!