What colour curtains with these F&B shades?

[awkigydrs]

I'm awful at this.

We've decided to decorate our living room in elephant's breath, our sofa is a light grey, carpets are light beige/grey, and furniture white and oak. What colour curtains would you go for? Wanting warmer tones but our sofa is too new and comfortable to change, so still in the grey pallet.

Bedroom will be done in Jitney which a warmer neutral closer to taupe I think, furniture will be white with some beige (e.g bedstead and accent chair). Again, looking for curtain recommendations.

Sorry that all sounds frightfully dull, I have lots of colour in the rest of my house I promise! But wanted neutral tones in these rooms.

Elephants Breath is a lovely colour - I have it in my room. But I think that it might not go well with a pure grey/bluish grey as it has browner undertones, so do check it against the shade of your sofa if you haven’t already.

Teal/duck egg shades seem to go well with EB. My curtains are a warm white.

As @crumpet mentioned, I’d make sure your various greys complement each other! Elephants Breath is a warm, brownish grey. I think it’s a gorgeous colour, and have used it in the past, but it wouldn’t complement a cool, architectural grey.
Assuming they do work together a really dark blue, a teal blue, or a mustard yellow might work well.

Thank you both. I know what you mean about EB and the fact it's a warmer tone, I feel like I might just get away with it with the sofa, especially if I dress it a bit (it's a cushion back) because it is quite a light grey, I'm just really ready to start de-greying the house and not sure I want to take a step back with a cooler grey wall tone 😬

When we are closer to painting I will do a large tester across the wall by the sofa.

I actually have duck egg curtains already.

If you’re sticking with the sofa and carpet, avoid the browny-grey of Elephant’s Breath, definitely - it will look accidental and ‘off’. Just because you have a grey sofa doesn’t mean you need grey walls!

What aspect does the room have?

We have an old grey sofa that was likewise too good to get rid of in one south-facing downstairs room. The walls are Dead Salmon (sort of mushroom /brownish pink?) and the curtains are a warm mustardy gold velvet. The floor is just floorboards with a kilim in warm dusty browny pinks and gold, and there are cushions in various colours on the sofa. Mismatched old furniture, mostly from auctions.

I’ll be honest, it was kind of accidental as we had no cash, and I just unrolled an old kilim we’d had for years to make it feel more lived in when we moved in, and took colour inspiration from that. But Dead Salmon turned out to be a really good way of warming up a grey sofa, and although it’s probably the room I gave least thought to, it looks great.

https://www.farrow-ball.com/ie/paint/dead-salmon

Just to say the carpets aren't a grey really, they are a very light colour, technically a grey (I think) but a light and warm shade, they could almost pass for beige, they're a cross between beige and grey I don't quite now how to describe them! (I love them and would have again even though avoiding grey). But basically they go very well with greys but also beiges and warm tones. They'd look great with EB, but not the sofa perhaps not.

Will take a look at dead salmon though, remember seeing it in the book.