help with our very pine living/dining room!

[ivejusthadacake]

can anyone help with colours?

We have pine floorboards which we dont want to restain (massive job last time in a different room and couldn't get the tinted varnish applied evenly - nightmare).

Our walls are a pure brilliant white which we are very happy with.

Out fireplace is lacquered beech and we seem to have some sort of beige-y coloured stone on the fire place.

We have black leather sofas arriving soon but no idea how to tie the room all together. www.johnlewis.com/john-lewis-ikon-high-back-medium-leather-sofa/p2513512?colour=Nature%20Black nice but not very exciting. i wouldn't say our style is super modern nor is it classic.

We have a huge bay window and as we are north facing in this room, do not want to add pattern or interest around the windows to get the maximum light in, we will be installing just very plain vertical blinds.

What can we do to make the room interesting? any accent accessories colours? no idea as the white walls and the warm creamy fireplace stone just seem to jar and have nil budget left to start doing stuff with that.

maybe hot pink paisley sort of designs for cushions and rugs? I would def go with an interesting print (try Liberty for inspiration). Add items that are a good design (coloured plastic bins from kartell?)

i keep looking at houzz but everything seems too "fabulous" for our place so no inspiration really there.

yes! great idea, i like the sound of hot pink paisley and am a fan of those. kartell lamps too.

i think the sofas are quite bog standard and informal but yes, bold pink might be good.

I think I'd start with a nice big rug you love, maybe with some texture, and add some cushions to pick out colour from that. Ikea is good for cheapish big rugs.

It might be a bit old fashioned for your tastes but I like the look of this one:
www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/10100495/ . One of the views of that one is a room set that has similar colours to your living room, I think.

Wine might work too: www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/50230664/ but it's hard to say without seeing it against the pine.

It might also help to get something grey in there just to see if it argues with the pine/beech/beige stone. My gut feeling is that grey won't work well, you'll need a warmer base. There's so much grey-based stuff around at the moment, it'll simplify your options a lot to know if you can disregard it all!

I wonder if you're struggling to mix the warmer tones of pine & beige stone with the very cool toned brilliant white. A softer, warmer white might more or less solve the problem. Possibly.

thanks cress! we do love the white though but maybe dulux jasmine white would have been a better bet. we wont be changing it though as the paint was expensive and the labour was too.

do you think mushroom grey would accessories would at all? would like to have a splash of pink too.

totally forgot about ikea!

Fair enough. The fact that you love it is reason reason to keep it. I think you're right actually, mushroomy grey might work.