If you feel that the patterns work well together but the colors just don’t gel, consider another color scheme from the same design. Alternatively, if you love the colors but feel the designs don’t do anything for each other after all, look at other product lines from the same manufacturer. Often a designer or manufacturer works with the same palette of colors for several collections and one of them may well provide you with the ideal combination of color and design.

Mixing and Matching

Although some designers believe that you should never mix more than four different designs in one plan, you can use a larger selection if they are totally compatible. To get the best mix, aim to include one large-scale pattern with one or two smaller patterns that are related in color and style: geometric designs such as stripes, checks or trellis, stars or spots are a good choice of smaller pattern.

If the main pattern is a traditional floral, blend it with an all-over leaf design or a sprig pattern. If it is a bold oriental print, a small paisley or French country pattern works as a more subtle contrast.

The opportunities for using different patterns side by side are enormous. In a living room, for example, a wing chair covered in a checked fabric contrasts well with a floral sofa, while matching curtains could be lined with a toning sprig or stripe. The wainscoting region offers scope for teaming one or two complementary wallpaper designs with a decorative border. Cushions, armcovers, and tiebacks open up further scope for building the complexity of the coordinated plan.

Sometimes, you can add pattern in less obvious ways to give an individual look. One method favored by some designers is to repeat a design motif throughout the scheme. For example, a trellis wallpaper could be echoed in a textured fabric with a diamond weave and again in the sculptured texture of a rug. Used sparingly, this device can make a room seem perfectly integrated. Repeating the motif in a stenciled border, using a reversible jacquard fabric, or hanging printed, sheer curtains at the window reinforces the look.

The art of mixing and matching lies in knowing when to stop. Avoid becoming a slave to coordination at all costs. Once you have set up the pattern and color linkages, you can start including some of your own accessories and decorations, not identical to the other designs but carefully chosen to go well with the rest of the plan.

In the Bedroom

If any one room is an ideal testing ground for coordinating designs, it must be the bedroom. Ready-made curtains and matching bed linen proliferate in every possible color and style. Then if you want to carry your chosen pattern further, some designs also offer wallpapers, borders, and fabrics by the yard or meter for making your own accessories.

When you choose bedroom coordinates from a design that includes fabric, the scope for originality increases enormously. You can make a focal point of the bed by covering a padded headboard, or create bed drapes for a canopy, half-tester, or coronet. On a less ambitious scale, you can make a customized window treatment with valance or pelmet, tiebacks or blinds to go with the curtains, or pile cushions on the bed or chair.

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Using the same or similar flooring throughout your home is an easy way to impose a sense of continuity – it also creates a feeling of spaciousness. You could, for example, choose natural sisal or a light honey-colored carpet for halls and stairs, vinyl tiles or woodblock in similar colors in the kitchen, with stripped and polished floorboards in the main reception rooms and bedrooms. Rugs can be used to vary the look of each room, and to pick up color from the rest of the room.

Pattern is a good way of creating a color sequence through your home. Fabrics and wallpapers featuring different patterns in related colors, or similar patterns at different scales can be played off against each other. You can pick up an important color from one room and incorporate it as a minor color in the next room. A patterned wallpaper in a hallway can be used to provide the palette for the adjoining rooms.

Architectural details such as baseboards, wainscoting, and picture rails can be used to provide a visual thread that carries color along corridors, through rooms, and even up stairs. White or off-white applied to architraves and other architectural features provides a crisp framing for blocks of color on walls, floors, and ceilings.

Accessories, pictures, rugs, curtains, and other soft furnishings can be used to provide splashes of related or contrast color which underline a predominant scheme, echo the color in an adjoining space, or provide a touch of visual drama.

Bright and Bold

Relatively small areas of color become important in certain contexts. In a predominantly pale room, a piece of bright blue glass at a window will draw the eye and have an impact which is disproportionate to its size. Introducing a new color into a room can entirely alter the existing color relationships. And because the eye looks for the similarities, you can use touches of the same color to set up connections which will draw the eye around a series of rooms so that they are experienced as a single entity. Texture, tone, and even repeated shapes can also be used to suggest unity and harmony.

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