Bobby McAlpine
It feels like just yesterday, most of our homes were decorated in the autumn colors of brown, beige, gold and burgundy.
Now the traditional brown is quickly turning into a ‘outdated’ color next to the clean, fresh and gray look. Quite a few of us still have the chocolate brown sofa and can not afford right now to buy new modern seating. So how can we modernize our existing furnishings?
In my opinion, paint is still the quickest, least expensive way to transform a room.
Chocolate brown and blue is still a popular combo. The coolness of the blue freshens the warm browns:
source
Turquoise blues, baby blues and navy blues work beautifully with brown.
If painting the room is not in the picture right now, start by removing all the gold and burgundy items in the room, especially the pillows. Then start introducing fresher colors in to the room.
What other colors beside blues work beautifully with brown?
Try beautiful greens for another great color option. I posted here how to update a room using fresh apple green.
Fern greens and apple greens work best.
Or how about ceylon?:
Bringing gray together with brown:
Ken Pursley
Or try clean crisp white and brown:
David Greer and Andrew Halliday

Another way to update and freshen the room is with your flooring. Grasscloth, bamboo, and sisal rugs will work well with your chocolate furnishings.
So, I think we can keep our brown sofa and just make a few inexpensive updates with color. Who knows, brown might be the next ‘new’ color in a year or so!
Comments? Other colors you might suggest to modernize chocolate brown?
If you need helping updating your home, contact me today.
Related posts:
Are Bedroom Accent Walls (Out)dated?
Faux Painted Walls? In or Out?
Bringing Back Your Dining Room, part 1
Bringing Back Your Dining Room, part 2
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That sounds so beautiful Mary!
I painted my dining room with Behr Silverberry which is a silver lavender. I added deep plum velvet drapes. It’s gorgeous with my chocolate brown velvet dining chairs and dark brown table. I added a dark brown leather bench on one side of the table to update the dining set.
Fun post Kelly! Love the green too!
x
maria
I am pretty tired of the blue and brown too, but a lot of people still love it!
Great suggestion! Thanks Kristie.
Great ideas for updating the browns, Kelly! You can also introduce warm gray paint colors to your existing brown furnishings – one that has a good dose of brown in the gray (Revere Pewter, Edgecomb Gray).
Brown and blue has run it’s course for me but I love brown and apple green! Great suggestions Kelly.