When Chairish – a curator-approved, online marketplace for vintage furniture – emailed me and challenged me to step away from the basic neutrals and imagine a bold colour scheme for a room, I was a little hesitant – confession, I’m an absolute colour-phobe! Every wall in my flat is painted white, and if it isn’t white then it’s light grey, which to be honest, looks white most of the time… I’m really not very brave when it comes to colour, I play it very, very safe and this was just what I needed to shake me out of my self-induced rut.
So, in a bid to go from ‘White to Bright’, I went into the complete opposite direction to light colours: the deep, moody, dark indigo blues and blacks. Maybe it’s because the weather’s starting to get a bit chillier and I feel the need to hunker down, candles burning, with a cosy blanket and a good book – a dose of Hygge the Dane’s would call it.
It’s a tricky one to get right, but dark walls can really work, without looking too oppressive, dark and dingy. I think the secret is mixing lots of lovely natural textures with it, to break it up and make great expanses of painted walls look less harsh. Old, antique furniture looks fantastic with a dark backdrop, it can make an accent chair ‘pop out’, as it were – woods seem even richer, natural linens somehow seem softer, leather seems warmer to the touch. Dark walls can also be lightened up with bright, pretty patterned rugs, black and white wall art (try white frames to give even more of a contrast) or even a dado rail and skirting boards painted a contrasting colour (as seen in the last image of the post, by masters of colour, Farrow & Ball). And if you’re not convinced, scroll down through these beautiful images and I assure you by the end, I might just have won you over…
Chairish was started by a design-loving couple who were faced with the problem of selling their old furniture when they moved house. They set up Chairish to connect similar, like-minded design lovers with each other so they can buy and sell their pre-loved vintage treasures in a trustworthy environment. Chairish takes care of all the annoying logistics of payments and shipping, and approves listings, leaving you to simply hunt out those one-of-a-kind pieces. They currently only ship in the US (boo!) but fingers crossed they come to the UK soon!
Shop the look
what do you think? would you dare to go with dark walls? would love to know your opinion!
