How to Coordinate a Room With Mismatched Furniture

Take photographs of your room from several angles and take pictures of furniture or decorative pieces you plan to include in your redecorating scheme. Use the pictures to establish a baseline against which you can measure what you have accomplished. Pictures also help you look at your room and furnishings with some objectivity. Instead of following previous decisions — Aunt Flo's chair has always been beige — you can experiment with other colors or prints. Study photos of individual objects to reconnect with why you like them. If you were drawn to geometric detailing, look at other objects in terms of similar detail. Knowing why you love things you own lets you highlight their best qualities and unify your collection.

Use paint as a unifyer for disparate objects. Decorators point to white paint as a quick way to create a dining set out of a variety of chairs, a collection of wooden candleholders or a grouping of small mirrors. Use paint in other ways. Let your chair color be the accent color in a room; peach walls, darker orangey upholstery and teal accent tables, baskets and shelves let the eye wander but bring the scheme together. Another effective use of paint is to tie collectibles or small furniture pieces to the trim paint. A group of picture frames, a lamp table and a child's chair add coherence to a dusky gray room when they are all painted the same almond white as the trim. For strippable pieces, wood stain functions as the same kind of unifier as paint.

Apply slipcovers or new upholstery to furniture pieces to produce visual coherence. Follow traditional decorator advice and choose white or pale neutrals to create slipcovers, or obtain a unifying effect by using any single color to cover large upholstered pieces. A single simple print can be used to reupholster a variety of shapes and sizes of wood-trimmed chairs; adding a single paint finish as well strongly pulls the group together. Purchase enough print fabric to make matching window valances if your room is large enough to use a lot of print without feeling crowded.

Let fabric set the tone for unification. Choose a print fabric for a chair then use solids in colors that echo the print. Pick unifying colors from an oriental or other print rug. Let the pattern guide you. If it has lots of green, some dusty pink and a little brown and white, seek a balance that uses lots of one color, some of the next and touches of the last two. This can result in a brown couch and love seat with dusty pink pillows and a dusty pink pillow or seat cushion in the several odd chairs you have repainted white. Groups of darker green candlesticks and a darker-green mirror frame are the final touch.