“I recently painted my living room a dark red. It took so many coats to cover evenly! What do you think about the drapes I bought and how do you feel about the sofas?”

- Alida, Mississauga, ON

Good job on painting the room. The dark colour looks good, although I wouldn’t have chosen it for the entire room. I would have preferred a lighter taupe colour with the red as a feature wall behind the beige sofa perhaps. Something to consider if you decide to change it up in the future. The amount of natural light you get in the room is a huge factor in painting with a dark colour. The more light the better. Dark colours usually take quite a few coats of paint to cover the walls evenly. To get around not using so many coats, you could have purchased a tinted primer that would have only had you do about two coats instead of five!!

The draperies themselves are nice and add the light element and contrast that I like. They also match your throw pillows. The issue with them is that they don’t look like they’ll close and cover the entire window. Here you can do one of two things; keep them as fixed panels where you keep them open at either end of the window and purchase blinds to cover the window, or get rid of them completely and use them in another room. Either way you win because you don’t have to give them to someone else! For the blinds I suggest white wood or PVC (wood looking) 2″ venetian blinds. I would also use the same style blinds in the other windows of the house to keep it looking consistent on the outside.

The style of sofa is definitely not my favourite. And the fact that they are so contrasting in colour isn’t something I suggest. But to make them work for now, try to get the same throw pillows for both sofas.

So now the only things that are missing is an area rug and coffee and side tables. For the area rug I suggest an 11′x18′ rug. The larger the rug, the larger the room looks. I would find one that incorporates all the colours with a neutral base and the colours as accents. Or get one that is a neutral colour with a border. This may be a less expensive choice but will work well to soften the look. And since you have a little baby I would get an oval coffee table so there are no pointy corners and usually a round side table coordinates.

Paint, blind and furniture samples/pictures will be added shortly

Thank you for your questions!