What is the best sofa colour, fabric and texture for you?

I’m pretty confident when it comes to how I use colour in my wardrobe and how I’ve styled my home with colour and fabrics, so it will come as no surprise to you that I embrace colour, prints and textures in my work too.

I believe colour is very powerful and it’s not just how we dress, but also how we live with colour that can affect our emotional wellbeing. It can change our mood in an instant, get it wrong and you can look drained and tired, get it right and you can look, and more importantly FEEL, vibrant and confident.

The same goes for how we use colour in our homes; if you open your wardrobe or look around in your daily life, you’ll see what colours you’re naturally drawn to through your accessories, shoes or in the case of my green sofa, a pedicure colour. 

I chose my sofa colour one day as I was laying on my temporary gumtree sofa that I bought for £50, a stand-in while I decided on the colour for my mid-century sofa I had in storage.

I’d sampled all kinds of greens, my favourite colour. I just couldn’t find one I loved that also worked in my North West facing living room. 

One Sunday, my green pedicure caught my eyes, as they were resting on the arm of my sofa and I thought that’s it, that’s the colour. 

It was bright, cheerful, and most importantly it lifts the room in all seasons. Since then, almost everyone who walks into the room gushes over my green sofa. It’s 8 years old now and still makes me feel happy when I see it.

In my video fabric meetings with my customers, I focus on colour, print, texture and how the room and furniture is used. 

The brilliant part of being on a video call is I can see other objects in the room, the wall colour, the rug, a lamp, a painting and most importantly how much light there is. These are all clues for me. 

When decorating a room, often people will paint the walls, decide on a floor material, pick a rug colour and whatever else before they choose a sofa shape and colour to fit in.

“If you get the sofa right, everything else will fall into place”

If it’s possible, I always recommend to my clients that when they’re starting a room from scratch to choose their sofa first, as it’s usually the largest piece of furniture in the room. 

If you get the sofa right, everything else will fall into place. 

And when you work with an upholsterer like myself, I can provide and recommend a myriad of styles, colours, textures and accents to create the perfect sofa design, as opposed to in store where you’ll most likely only find plain fabrics in limited colours.

There are a number of factors to consider when choosing how you want your sofa to look, but don’t worry, I’m here to guide you through the process. 

 

Style and colour psychology

 

Everyone has different tastes and it’s my job to root out your unique taste and how that can influence the colour, style and look you want to achieve in the room.

Once I have an idea of what colour scheme might suit the customer, that’s when the 60/30/10 rule comes into play.

It’s not something that customers have to stick to religiously but it’s a good starting point and the theory is that 60% of the room should be a dominant colour, 30% a secondary colour and then 10% should be an accent, such as scatter cushions. 

 

Size and shape

 

As well as making sure the physical size and shape of the sofa fits the room, it’s also important to consider how colour can create the illusion of more or less space. 

Bright colours can really open up a space, while darker tones can add warmth and close in the space, making it feel more cosy. 

 

Atmosphere

 

It’s really important to understand what you want a room to feel like and then fabric selection can come from there. 

It’s a common misconception, for example, that if you have dark walls, you can’t choose a dark sofa, you absolutely can. It makes the room feel more dramatic and cosy too.

A really beautiful print can brilliantly compliment dark walls. It means everything won’t feel so gloomy as it’s lifted by the print in the room and the same goes for texture as well. 

In contrast, light coloured sofas bring a breezy feel to the room and are perfect for smaller spaces that might have limited natural light.

The bright colours can be anchored down by scatter cushions and other accessories and their versatility is great if you don’t want to be tied down to a bright permanent wall colour. 

 

Theme

 

It’s a good idea to have a theme running through the house so you don’t feel like each room has been entirely independently designed as you walk around. 

I love the colour green, so in my house I have a version of green in every room. I combine the green with lots of different textures and then I have pops of pink, blues and oranges as accompaniments. 

I recommend that all my clients take the colour scheme of the house into consideration when choosing how to design their sofa.

 

Light

 

I’m a firm believer in you needing to see a fabric sample in the room your furniture will be in before committing to it. I also offer larger samples if a customer is struggling when they have narrowed their options down to a shortlist.

When you see a colour in a shop or showroom light, you’re not getting a good idea of how it will look in the light of your home that you live in on a daily basis. 

So, I say to all my customers that they should put the samples on the sofa or chair and make sure they love it first thing in the morning, in the middle of the day and in the evening when the lights are turned on.

 

Lifestyle

 

Thinking about how you use a room will play a big part in the colour and especially the fabric of your sofa. 

If my clients have a cat, I won’t send them an open weave fabric because it will get clawed at and so I’ll steer them towards a resilient velvet that is too slippery to be clawed. 

Or if you have young children, it’s probably best not to choose a cream sofa and so we’ll go for a darker colour or print that can hide a million sins. 

 

How can I help? 

 

Interior design is not something that all upholsterers will offer, and it’s certainly not advice you’ll find in a store full of mass-produced sofas, but I would almost go as far as saying I have an obsession for making sure a fabric “fits” my customer’s home. Maybe it’s something to do with my background in fashion and being surrounded by fabrics every day since I was 20 years old.

“I have an obsession for making sure a fabric fits my customer’s home”

If someone’s investing in their furniture with me, I want to make sure they absolutely love it for years to come and that it stands the test of time. 

That’s why I’ll do a FaceTime consultation with all my clients so that I can see the style of their house and give my input into how their sofa, chair, chaise, bed or footstool can best follow the theme while standing out as its own unique piece.So, if you want my help not only creating your dream piece of furniture, but also making sure it fits into your home seamlessly, then make an enquiry today.