11 EASY TIPS HOW TO MIX WOOD TONES

The different types of woods that are available and their unique colors, tones, grains, and also stains are absolutely beautiful. But sometimes the issue of how to mix wood tones in your own home can come with its own hurdles.

And most likely, if you are anything like me, you have different pieces of furniture (that you loooooove (or maybe not?) and can't part with) that have different wood tones... and possibly wood floors made of other different wood tones, and you are unsure of how to make them gel. 

So, if this is why you are here, or maybe just out of curiosity 😉 then yippee and welcome! Please come on in, sit back, have a cup of tea, and read on to find out about some juicy nuggets of information and tips about how to mix wood tones in your own home!

I hope that a few of these decorating basics with wood that my husband and I have learned along the way, will help you as well!

THIS POST IS ALL ABOUT HOW TO MIX WOOD TONES

A key step in how to mix wood tones is to find your dominant wood tone. Most of the time, if you have wooden floors, they will most likely be your dominant piece, thus your dominant wood tone.

But of course, exceptions always exist, and it could be your kitchen cabinets or an in-wall shelving unit, a large bookcase or an entertainment unit.

Also, you may have a dominant wood tone that is not your fav, but until or unless you can change it, in the meantime still go with it as your dominant tone in efforts to make a more balanced and cohesive look and atmosphere and you can still make it look beautiful!

This dominant wood tone also impacts your overall interior design style and color scheme for a room and your home as well.

Once you figure out your dominant piece and tone, you will want to figure out what its undertone is.

In the picture below, you will see how the wooden floor in the kitchen and breakfast area is the dominant piece setting the dominant tone.

2. FIGURE OUT THE UNDERTONE

The next step is to figure out what the undertone is of your dominant wood.

So, what is undertone? Basically, it's the underlying color of the wood essentially.

And these undertones can fall into one of 3 main different categories: warm undertones (such as red, yellow, orange), cool undertones (blue, gray, green, purples) and neutral undertones which are primarily beige.

It is important to get this part figured out since it will directly impact and affect your other wood choices also including other selections such as wall colors, furniture, lighting, fabrics, etc.

So then, how do you figure out the undertone? Hopefully some woods should be more apparent to see their undertones clearly, where you can see more red or orange or even gray. 

But if not, try and compare your piece to another piece of wood to try and make it easier for you to see it. Or also hold up some different examples of colors to see if a more red, yellow, or gray-blue stands out.

There will also be a range in the value of the wood, meaning if it's more light or dark, and also the undertone, meaning you may have a wood piece with a yellow undertone, but it can range from a dark yellow undertone to a light-yellow undertone.

Another idea is to take a picture of your wood and input it into a color app. It can then show you the main colors it detects to help you see the undertone and temperature of the piece of wood.

For more information about colors and undertones and color apps, please check out my post on 13 Easy Tips How To Match Colors That Look Good Together In Your Home!

In the above photo, the darker brown wood floor is the dominant wood tone, and it has a cooler undertone. I am not sure if you can see it, but it has a touch of purple to it! 🙂 So cool!

3. CONSIDER THE GRAIN

The grain of the wood also plays an important role with how to mix wood tones together to achieve a cohesive, well-balanced look and vibe. 

With wood, there are essentially 2 types of grain: open and closed grain.

The open grain woods are a little rougher in texture and they have large pores, which are actually holes in the wood. These pores impact the patterns in the wood. A few examples include mahogany, walnut, and oak and they work in a design style that is more rustic and natural.

The closed grain woods are smoother in their texture and their pores, or holes, are small. A few examples include cherry, birch, maple, and hickory. They work well in a more elegant or polished style such as a classic or traditional design style.

And also with the different grains, it is usually more cohesive to use only one open grain wood in a room or when you contrast decorating with different woods. In the picture below, you can see the open grain of the table, window trim, and the ceiling beams.

4. CONTRAST TONES

A fourth tip in how to mix wood tones, is to contrast different wood tones rather than trying to find and blend the same wood tone in a room or home. It also adds more interest to your room.

Why is that? When trying to blend the same tone it can be more difficult to match different pieces to match the main wood tone and it can many times look like a complete mismatch. It can also make your room look washed out or monotone where different pieces in your room blend in, or get washed out.

But when you contrast with your dominant tone, you are adding some depth and interest to the look and the flow of your room.

In the photo below, you can see the contrast of the different woods between the wood floor, the kitchen island and beams, the backs of the stools, and the console/cabinet on the right. The ceiling beams, kitchen island, posts, and in-wall shelving unit are the same wood.

The floor sets the tone, and then the kitchen island etc picks up the darker tones of the wood floor, and the console wood picks up the lighter tones in the floor.

Also, when you are contrasting your tones, if you have similar undertones, specifically if they are warm, cool, or neutral, they will be easier to blend together when they are in the same category. (Warm-Warm) (Cool-Cool) (Neutral-Neutral)

But a quick caveat, as always with decorating, there are always exceptions and it is possible to mix warm with cool, and warm with neutral etc. It depends on different factors and sometimes just takes a little bit of extra configuring. 🙂

Looking again at the photo above, the undertone is more orange thus it has a warmer undertone and the contrasting tones and wood pieces are also warm and are able to pick up the orange and warmth from the floor.

Extra note: a fun idea too is to mix it up a bit if you choose by contrasting the texture of your woods, even if it's with a small accent piece, such as mixing an antique piece of wood like a bowl or foot stool, in a room with woods that have clean lines.

Here are just a few recommended different wood tones that pair well together:

Honey Oak and Red Oak (and also Maple, Birch, Brazilian Cherry)

Cherry and Maple

Mahogany and Cherry

Mahogany and Curly Maple

Red Oak and White Ash

Walnut and Maple

Walnut and White Oak

5. RULE OF 3

This is an overall guide to go by to try to keep your room from looking too busy with too many different woods possibly competing with each other. Just like in the photo above, it is using 3 different tones of wood: the floor, kitchen island, and console.

Using 2 different types or tones of wood works wonderfully as well and sometimes 4 but you will need to be strategic in the tone and type of wood along with the placement in your room.

6. USE A BRIDGE TONE OR A SEQUE PIECE TO TIE TONES TOGETHER

Most of the time, your segue piece (same as a transition piece), or a wood tone that is a bridge to tie your different wood tones together, will be your wood floor. Other times it can be a large wall unit or in wall cabinets. 

You will also probably see that most of the time your bridge tone will be the same as your dominant tone. Meaning, there will be different hues in your dominant wood tone and then your contrasting tones and pieces will reflect those hues found in your bridge piece or dominant wood piece.

In the picture below, you can see how the wood floor is the segue piece or the bridge tone tying the different wood tones together. It is also the dominant wood tone in this room as well.

7. USE BUFFERS-BREAK UP THE FLOW OF THE WOODS

You can also refer to the picture above in item 6 to see how using a buffer, such as the rug under the kitchen table, can help break up the mix of the woods.

Sometimes, due to the grains and rings in wood along with variety of colors, using multiple contrasting woods can seem dizzying or monotonous. It can also really draw attention to the differences in your different woods.

Wood on wood can sometimes give a vibe of harshness due to the hard lines. So, using a buffer, such as a rug, or pillows, or different textures, they can add to making your room and decor look more cohesive and also add some softness and coziness.

8. BALANCE - USE MORE THAN ONE PIECE WITH THE SAME WOOD TONE

Use more than one piece of furniture or decor in the same wood tone throughout your room. There is something about having some continuity or repetition of the same tone in a room to make it feel more cohesive. And it also shows intentional design was used in your room.

You can also use the same tone more than once with door frames, window fixtures, ceiling beams, you name it. The point is trying to use more than one piece to try and tie together and have the wood tone flow through your room, even if it is with just two pieces placed strategically in your room.

This also includes the placement of your different wood pieces. If you put all of your darker toned wood pieces on one side of your room and all the lighter pieces on the opposite side, it will look out of balance.

In the picture above, the wood of the wall unit, the wall beams and the coffee table are of the same tone. But also, you can see even tho more subtle, the wood tone of the sofa end table and of the armrests of the accent-club chairs are the same. They help add balance including their placement within a larger room. So cool!!

9. LINES AND STYLES OF MAIN PIECES OF FURNITURE

A useful tip my husband and I learned when we have decorated a home, is that when you keep most of your wood pieces in the same style, meaning their lines and shaping, it helps to keep a more cohesive whole in your room when using different tones.

For example, maybe your main or dominant wood piece may be a wall unit and all the lines and edges are straight, so if you use a contrasting tone of wood for another piece of furniture, also have that piece have straight lines and edges as well. The same goes for if you have more curved lines etc.

That is not to say you can't do some mixing of the styles of the shaping of the wood pieces, but if the primary pieces are of the same structural style, it will actually help to pull the pieces together and have an easy flow to the room making it more cohesive.

And then you can mix in an accent piece with different shaping if you want.

In the below picture, our family room has in-wall bookshelves that are a more Craftsman-Mission style shape with straight edges in mahogany, (our floor is also a mahogany), so we found a straight-edged Craftsman-Mission style bookcase to add some depth to the room with the contrasting color, but it has the straight edges to keep the flow of the styles of the wood.

10. TEXTURE OF DIFFERENT SURFACES

Another helpful suggestion to help with how to mix wood tones in a room, is also to incorporate different textures of items and furniture.

This falls in line with suggestion #7 to help add buffers in the room with a rug etc, by adding different pieces with different textures and surfaces, such as a hard surface such as marble or metal or even a soft surface such as velvet or leather.

In a more panned out view in the photo down below (from the same photo of our family room from above), we used a large velvet covered ottoman along with leather couches to help add some variety to our room that has a lot of wood pieces. You can also see we did some buffers on the wood piece on top of the ottoman too! 🙂

11. ACCENT COLORS AND ACCESSORIES

A final suggestion to also help mix wood tones in your home and rooms, is to incorporate different and/or contrasting accent colors and accessories. 

In reference to the two above photos, you will see how we used contrasting yet complimentary colors with the pillows, the large round light gold mirror, and decor pieces on the ottoman and also on the shelves.

The table lamp on the end table between the two sofas also helps break up dynamic but still keeps it cohesive.

Conclusion:

I hope these 11 different suggestions in how to mix wood tones in your home help add some guidance and basic steps to help you decorate your home with different tones of wood. 

Interior decorating can be a challenge especially when you are unsure of what style you want to go with or color scheme let alone decorating with different nuances including how to even mix different tones of wood, either by choice or if your current furniture selection is a collection of different pieces.

I truly enjoy decorating and color and art, so I hope to help share my joy to help make it easier to see some steps and tips to help you to decorate your home to reflect your vision, your beauty, your style, your very own omG style!

If you are curious about some different interior design styles and some of their main features you may want to use in your own home, check out my blog post Simple Tips of 41 Types of Different Interior Design Styles!

Have a nice day! 🙂

THIS POST IS ALL ABOUT HOW TO MIX WOOD TONES