Decorating and Design - Need advice for Living Room

We have a formal dining room and a living room across from each other. We used to use the living room as music room where we put the baby grand piano in black, a red leather chair, 2 small beige chairs with black music stand for playing violin. Now we want to redecorate the whole house by doing window treatments and convert this room back to living room with the baby grand piano. So we bought a microfibre sofa and a chair (they don't do loveseats) in beige color. The window treatment is the Empire valences with panels in taupe color and using brown as contrast. In the dining room, we have a buffer, table with 6 chairs in brown color. The material for the chair is suede and the wood color is maple. The window treatments for the formal dining room is also swag valence with panels in taupe color and using brown as contrast. I have 3 problems as following:

1. Can I still put the red leather chair in the living room where we have a microfibre sofa and another chair in beige color?

2. Do I need to get rid of 2 small chairs and the music stand so that the living room won't get too crowded?

3. There is a Coffee table and an End table that are wood in black color. The shape of the tables are really matched with the shape of the table in the dining room but not the wood color. Is it OK to put them in the living room while we have maple wood through out the house?

Thanks so much!

1. YES! it'll be a great punch of color in an otherwise neutral color scheme.

2. if it's too crowded & you don't need them, then by all means, move them elsewhere. but if you need them AND you can fit them in easily without compromising walkways & layout, leave them. it's hard to say without seeing the floorplan, so you'll have to be the judge.

3. since the piano is black, i would think the black tables would be fine. you might even add some touches of black in the dining room to carry the black accents through, maybe in an area rug or candlesticks or chandelier shades (if applicable) or even just some prints framed in black. ...but if the black tables just seem like too much black or out of place, then replace them with some in maple. again, you'll have to try it & judge for yourself.

Annette,

Thanks so much!

kdo...

for the #1 thing (red leather couch)...you can also add some or find some small accent stuff like a red vase or a picture/painting with some red in it, etc.

Thanks so much, DIYaddict. I'm thinking about putting a red toss pillow in the beige chair, a beige toss pillow in the red chair and 2 taupe pillows in the beige sofa. Does that work as well? Do all pillows get to be the same style? Thanks again.

is the room contemporary, traditional or ....what?

definitely do not use all the same pillows just in different colors. bor-ing! some round, some square, some rectangle, some with fringe, some with cord, some with pattern, etc....

but if this space is contemporary, very FEW pillows. like maybe one or 2 on one side of the sofa. that's it. and they'd better be special!

At first, I'd like to make it contemporary so I only had wood blind and the furniture I bought them at Scan Design store but then I saw it kind of bare so I added window treatments (Empire valence with tassels and panel in silk taupe and brown as contrast). Now it is kind of in between. So if I want to keep it clean, I should have 1 or 2 pillows on the sofa. What is the best color do you suggest? Thanks so much!

the pillows might be a good place for something multi-colored, to pull all these colors together. maybe a really rich looking tapestry number with similar tassels or fringe. have that one sitting in front of a more simple one with maybe just cording.

Thanks Annette. So I should put 1 multi-colored pillow (should have some red, beige, brown and trim in it) in front of a solid taupe pillow at a corner of the sofa, will that be all? can I leave other 2 chairs empty?

put it in front of whatever color pillow sets it off the best - i was thinking black (maybe even black leather), but it will depend on the pillow itself.

you can leave the other chairs empty. chairs don't look as empty & lonely as a sofa does. contemporary decor is usually pretty minimal. not to mention, guests find pillows annoying.

Thanks so much for all the advices! I found them very helpful.