Beige sitting room

I bought my cottage from an artist. It was BRIGHT!

Tangerine walls with maroon window frames in the lounge, navy blue bedroom walls, vomit colour green kitchen walls..........I thought it would be OK. It wasn't, I am magnolia throughout now with every colour int he rainbow on the picture frames and furnishings. Even my sofa is orange / green and cerise segment with numerous throws etc.

I do love colour but as the light changes throughout the day it can become a migraine situation..............

We moved a year ago and had the whole house decorated.Houzz is a fantastic website. Whatever ideas you have, type them into the Houzz site and they will come up with photos of projects using similar ideas. I now have dark blue (Stiffkey Blue F&B) alcoves in our sitting room. Pics on Houzz proved a) I hadn't thought up something new and bizarre, and b) the scheme worked!

I talked Dad into getting a paper get similar, if not identical, to use as a feature wall in the hallway.It jazzes up a seriously dull cream entrance.

I find houzz really useful for colour schemes. Try looking at the Farrow & Ball website, they are good for colour matching. When you find colours you like try using Dulux or similar paint mixing service. Sometimes just changing 1 wall & accessories can give a room a new lease of life or give you a feeling of a new colour.

For a pop of colour you can't go wrong with cushions! When you want a quick change (or get fed up with the colours )it's quite an inexpensive way to make a completely different look.
We have a navy suite and at the moment it has one lime green cushion!

Expensive but dramatic Natural History museum will do a bespoke mural whatever dimensions you have for one wall, have a look, with your dark settees you could go wild with co-ordinates. A real impact ? Teal giant anaconda, ? Flamingos in their habitat, other walls white, it is your house make a statement of you, not what a decor guru chooses as the theme of the moment.

I too have a problem with decorating my new home, moved in 18 months ago but garden was such a jungle I have concentrated on making that into a "proper" garden, still lots to do but it's work in progress, now at least we can see rose bushes & hardy fuschias & few plants added (neighbour re-designing their garden so giving away their unwanted plants).

My home is decorated throughout in primrose, nice colour but need to freshen up. Kitchen is magnolia (not much wall space & small so needs light colour, can always change accessories!! Hallway I am going to do magnolia as well, lots of pictures to be added.

Bedroom, I have been given some lovely wallpaper with a sheen to it & pattern. Wet Room so no decorating.

Through Lounge has 6 windows & door to garden, so little wall space, very light room so need to choose carefully but it will be painted, when I have decided on colour scheme. Cream Settee & light wood Dining Table & Sideboard plus 2 large Display cabinets also light wood, curtains at 2 windows (navy) & cushions grey & cream plus navy rug

For goodness sake avoid that metallic wallpaper - it'll look like an old people's home. Get some mags like The English Home ( they are expensive but the library may stock) You should get good ideas from these sorts of magazines. Try to avoid it looking like a room setting in Laura Ashley or Next. Individuality is everything: if you haven't inherited interesting stuff, trawl some junk shops. We have great ones here in Dorset.

I have F &B 'dimity' hall, stairs and kitchen/dining room which keeps it all light and airy. My kitchen units are a sort of blue/grey/green!! I prefer plain light walls and have light greys/ blues /browns in other rooms so I can ring any changes without too much re-decorating! Light will make such a huge difference to a colour and we all see them differnetly. We went to see some friends the other day and DH said 'Oh look they have painted their house (outside) pink' It was not pink to my eyes more 'stone'

Even going to somewhere like Next is useful. They have lots of variety and matching/toning accessories, and often attractive displays.

I too have two 2-seater brown leather sofas. I have pale beige carpet and modern light wood fireplace and furniture. It is a modern room. I have brown plush stripy cushions and brown/teal stripy velvet cushions. Teal looks lovely with brown. I also have quite a few teal coloured tealight holders in varying shapes and sizes on the mantelpiece and hearth. I also have 3 pictures I bought from Homebase with teal background and large white flower and vice versa. I am happy with it and everyone says what a lovely room it is. You could do the same sort of thing with your favourite colours of blue and green for the accessories, etc.

Nothing wrong with a beige/magnolia/cream sitting room - plain walls and classic, timeless, good quality pieces of furniture make the perfect neutral base to accessorize with different colours and textures, plus you can change those accessories to reflect the seasons, or whatever colours/styles/pieces are in vogue this year, and keep current without having to keep replacing expensive pieces of furniture.

Thank you for all the replies. I'm really enjoying looking at the Houzz website. Everything in our living room is brown or beige. One of our dogs has chewed my expensive chocolate brown wool rug so that will be the first thing to be replaced. We've had that dog for more than a year so don't know why he suddenly decided to chew it. Perhaps he doesn't like brown either. He's sleeping in the kitchen now at night and chewing the oak chair legs instead. We can't have cushions as the dogs chew them but I do have a lot of pure wool throws in bright colours (not in beige).

If you want to freshen up your beige colour scheme try painting the walls white. There is an incredible difference in the amount of light reflected by white walls compared to cream or magnolia.