With insights from our design expert, discover how pairing your black sofa with particular colour palettes can transform your living room.
Similar to a black dress in your closet, a black sofa is a stylish and adaptable choice for the living room. As a shade, black symbolises sophistication, power and elegance. And when it’s your living room colour scheme of choice, it showcases these qualities with its commanding presence.
Black is a combination of all colours, giving it the flexibility to complement or contrast depending on your personal décor style. Use a black sofa to ground a white living room or pair it with light, earthy tones to jazz up a neutral space. You can also contrast it with a relaxing green or blue hue or as an anchor to bold jewel tones.
With the help of Rebecca Snowden, Interior Style Advisor at Furniture And Choice, read on to discover more black sofa living room styling tips and colour schemes. After you’ve read our black sofa decorating ideas, browse our range of stylish black leather sofas to get started.
Create a minimalist look with a black sofa set and white walls. Since this style favours clean lines and a calming ambience, choose a recliner with a contemporary design that’s perfect for putting your feet up after a long day.
“Use the sofa to ground the room or zone an open plan space,” Rebecca says. “A black and white palette favours chic, unfussy style so decorate around the sofa with a mix of light and dark accessories such as cushions and artwork.” If you’re worried about your living room looking too stark, introduce a large rug to bring warmth and add depth to the space. Freshen up the living room with greenery which will also break up the black and white elements.
Bring style and comfort to your living room. Browse our leather sofas here >“Earthy neutral tones like beige or cream bring a calming vibe to any space,” Rebecca says. ”Contrast a black sofa’s sharp, bold style with laidback neutral accessories.” For example, anchor a modern boho living room with a black leather sofa. Soften the look with casual accessories in rattan, jute or cotton textures.
Hampton 3 Seater SofaOn the other side of the style spectrum, you can also use a black sofa to elevate a classic living room. Choose a charming black Chesterfield sofa to highlight the elegant details of the room such as an alcove or wall panelling. Keep the palette muted with beige walls or curtains for the sofa to stand out.
Another black sofa living room idea is to create a high-contrast look with modern jewel tones. Go all out with rich mauve walls for a warm, sophisticated feel. Add maximum impact with floral or jewel-tone cushions and printed artwork.
Kenton Sofa Set“If you prefer a softer approach, opt for light pink walls,” Rebecca says. “It will add a light-hearted feel to the room even with a black sofa set as the centrepiece.” Layer the darker shades of pink through your accessories, like abstract artwork featuring dusty pink or magenta designs.
Stockholm Sofa SetAnd, if you want to incorporate jewel tones in small pops that’s okay too. Pick brightly coloured cushions, throws or vases that stand out against your sofa. Paint your walls a neutral colour for your abstract artwork to make maximum impact.
Two is better than one. View our bestselling sofa sets here >Create a calming contrast by pairing a black sofa with relaxing green hues. Kickstart the soothing vibes with an inviting recliner set. Opt for a shade like teal as an accent colour. “Teal’s blue-green combination makes it an invigorating choice when paired with a black sofa,” Rebecca explains. “Highlight its natural vibrance through calming accents like a stylish rug or abstract artwork.” Complement the sofa with other black accents such as a coffee table or light wood tones to bring balance to the space.
Complement a black sofa’s timeless design with light wood tones. “Let the sofa’s soft curves and comfy vibe be the focal point of the room,” Rebecca says. “Use timber flooring and wooden shelves as a base for layering with natural textures.” Keep the look understated by choosing a cotton rug in a light neutral hue. Liven up the space with indoor greenery to complete the look.
Go big on style while staying compact in size. View our wide range of 2 seater sofas here >Considered avant-garde for some, pairing a black sofa with black walls makes for a striking statement. The key to making it seem less intimidating is to soften the look with different textures. “Set the scene with textured wallpaper and a black leather sofa,” Rebecca says. “For added comfort and style, accessorise with a cosy throw or two.” Look for other ways to bring different textures into the mix such as a black metal coffee table or fabric rug.
Furniture And Choice recliner sofas“If you think this look is too dark for a living room, you can recreate this for your TV room or home cinema with the help of a cosy recliner,” Rebecca suggests. “It’s the perfect colour palette for watching a movie.” Pick out a recliner that’s big enough for the whole family. Opt for black out curtains if your room is near a window. Install ambient lighting which is easy to switch on and off. The accessories also shouldn’t be too over the top as to not draw away attention from the screen. Stick to simple silhouettes for a coffee table or vases.
Black is an incredibly versatile pick for your home thanks to its modern and grounding feel. Now that you have black sofa living room ideas, discover more ways to incorporate black into your home. If you’re looking for bold and modern dining room inspiration, check out our black dining sets. View our range of black bedroom furniture to bring a distinctive touch to your bedroom. Besides what colours go with a black sofa, browse our grey sofa or brown leather sofa guides.
Now that the black trend is here, we will be seeing a lot more black sofas! Here’s an Ask Maria post about decorating around one. What colours work best with black furniture?
Really the question should be, “What colours DON’T go with black leather furniture?” If you have black furniture, you have decorating and style options.
However, if your entire room is already shades of black and grey, you’re probably wondering what colour curtains will work or what colour cushions will make the room happier? Well, it’s kinda too late. This post explains WHY.
Chatelaine Magazine
I thought this post would be helpful to so many who have a living room that looks like this.
The one with the comfy leather furniture that the husband probably picked out. No offense to husbands in general but while we all love to sit on recliners (myself included) it doesn’t end up with a look that would make it into a design magazine right?
But we can certainly make it much better.
First, the colours that don’t look amazing with black are earth (muddy, muted) tones or really dark colours. If this is the look of your existing furniture, and you install a sage green rug and drapes, or gold beige rug and drapes, dark burgundy, navy blue, or eggplant rugs and drapery, well that’s going to be really hard to pull off.
Not that it cannot be done, but in general, if you are not an experienced decorator, stick to brighter, lighter colours.
A well decorated neutral room needs CONTRAST and perhaps warmth introduced by wood stained furniture to create a warm and inviting room.
Start with a rug that also has a little black in it. That also helps to make it look more coordinated.
And, here’s a question from my reader with existing black furniture:
“I am wondering what design of curtains would look best in our living room. I’m wondering if grey would work?
We were also wondering what we should do with the fireplace. It’s just an electric one. But it doesn’t seem to fit with the room.
We just have a small mobile home that we live in right now. But I would like to make it look as nice as possible.”
A corner fireplaces should NEVER and I mean NEVER be installed in the first place. Builders love to install them because it makes it easiest to vent the fireplace but they are really hard to decorate and arrange furniture around.
It’s even extremely difficult to find a pretty decorated corner mantel anywhere online. This was the best one that I could find.
Corner fireplace decorating | House Beautiful
To my reader: Mostly, the reason why your fireplace bothers you is because of the overpowering black television.
Since you don’t have any other oak furniture in this room, I would consider painting it your trim colour. However, since your TV has to go somewhere, it doesn’t look like you have any other options.
The first guidelines to getting colour right is to identify the existing colours in the room. If you need to decide what should stay and what should go.
She sent me several photos of her room. This is what makes it easier to choose colours online, once you’ve seen the same room from many angles you can get a good sense of what the undertones are.
In this case, the walls appear to be a green beige and the paint colour doesn’t work with the rug which is more pink/violet in general (above).
To be clear, it’s not like green clashes with pink. However, your paint colour should pull your space together, not be chosen because it’s happens to be the complement to pink (for example).
If you keep the existing rug, I would suggest the buffalo check drapes (above left). Then the palest pink beige in my system would be perfect with this combination. Find the list of all my curated colours here.
However, if you want to introduce any colour into this room, you’ll need to buy a new area rug, here are two from IKEA along with curtains and pillows.
IKEA rug | IKEA Curtains | Sofa | Light blue cushion | Blue & White Cushion |
Keep in mind, two panels on each side of such a large window will look better than one. The minute you close one panel on a window this big to cover the curtain, it looks like a sheet blowing in the wind. Even if you will NEVER close your curtains you want them to LOOK like they could close.
And make sure you install rods that go at least 10″ past each side of the window so that they can stack against the wall and don’t cover up the windows. Here’s a post I wrote about measuring for curtain rods.
IKEA rug | IKEA Curtains | Sofa | Teal cushion | Turquoise Cushion |
And here’s a third option in ‘neutrals’ but as you can see this room doesn’t have a bleak ‘all grey’ look even though this rug is cream and grey. The cream in the pillow creates contrast and interest and lightens up the black sofa.
IKEA rug | IKEA Curtains | Sofa | Knitted cushion | Striped Cushion | Lumbar cushion
My new eDesign decorating add on includes 2 combinations of: 2 Decorative Pillows, Coordinating Area Rug, and 3 Colour Accent Palette (designed to be used to shop with so you can buy lamps, accessories, etc). It needs to be purchased with one of these paint colour packages (below).
When you purchase one of these packages, you can select this add on under ‘Customize Your Package’ at checkout.
Related posts:
How to Decorate with Black and How NOT to Decorate with It
4 Ways to Decorate around Your Charcoal Sofa
Ask Maria: Do the Undertones in Dark Colours Need to Match?