Sofas and floors!

[LittlePandaBear]

I'm thinking of getting some new sofas if I can convince DH. We currently have churocolate brown leather ones which were fine in our old house, however they're too small for our new living room and I'd love some new bigger ones so we can stretch out a bit!

The carpet is a beigey colour and is in good condition, so i don't want to replace it.

The trouble is, I'd love some greyish fabric sofas but my MIL says that they wouldn't go with the carpet, so we couldn't get grey. She is probably right, but I don't want dark brown sofas again, would love something softer and lighter as we already have darkish wood furniture. Worried that coffee ish colour sofas would look a bit 'blah'.

The walls are magnolia, we haven't repainted since we moved over a year ago! We have some blue curtains and I would eventually like to paint a pale blue on the walls and maybe change the curtains.

I'm not great at interior design so any ideas would be welcome.

I don't know how I spelt chocolate so wrong in my first line, it's my favourite thing

i have a grey living room with brown leather sofas and a grey carpet. Curtains are a mink colour (browny/grey).... looks nice i think. No body else has burst out laughing

Is it possible to take a sample of sofa fabric home to put near the carpet? Use cushions or curtains to tie in the two colours?

That's a good idea impty, I think I'll get some samples as there are lots of shades of grey

My MIL is quite old school, and although her house is immaculate, everything has to be completely coordinated and I don't mind some things not 'matching' as it gives a house a bit more personality a least that what I tell myself

I like the word eclectic

I have curtains that are a muted cream (magnolia-esque), minky brown and grey check. (Are a lot better than they sound - in fact are luffly and often complimented) so I think there is definitely a grey out there that will do the job. Samples and standing in your sitting room one arm crossed and the other under your tilted chin looking thoughtful/pondering will be the way forward.

And potentially try dulux colour or F&B colour charts. Find a/some shades that will work before you go getting samples...will cut down the job a bit if you can try and narrow it down before you start trudging round the shops IYSWIM.

That's a good idea Fishfingers about getting a paint chart before I hit the shops!

I like to think that all neutrals go together, hence the name 'neutral'.

Now for the difficult part - convincing DH that we need to spend his new bonus on sofas rather than being sensible and putting it in savings.

Think we would be your MIL's worst nightmare!

We have just painted our living room blue, we have one beige-y couch and one brown herringbone. We just got curtains made which are a natural linen colour with a grey splodgy pattern on them!

I got samples of all the paints and fabrics etc first and you could easily see which tones worked together and which didn't.

Get what you like - its your money and you're the ones who will live with it,not her!

Hello again!

I convinced DH, he wanted sofas too so it was easy. He's not one to spend ages thinking about options and going to 5 different sofa shops, so we went to DFS today and ordered this in Navy, along with a patterned cuddler chair.

I'm really excited and nervous though that I won't like them when they arrive, they only had a pale grey in the showroom (gorgeous but less practical). I think the navy will go with our carpet okay, and if they clash with the curtains then we'll replace the curtains as they're only cheap ones.

Thanks for your support that anything goes, and you're right Sunny, as long as we like it then it shouldn't matter what anyone else thinks!