My friend recently purchased a gorgeous duvet set online, but when it arrived, she realized it didn’t match anything in her rather plain bedroom. What to do? Luckily, a duvet set is a perfect place to start your decoration journey for your bedroom.
With the basic colors, patterns, and scale in place (perfectly chosen by the duvet designers), it’s a piece of cake to create a complete and tasteful decor scheme.
Starting Point: Evaluating the Duvet Set
To start, it’s important to evaluate the duvet set you’ve purchased. Even if it’s an old duvet set you like, you need to start by writing down a few basic points.
1. First Base Color
Identify the base color. This is the color that is used the most in the duvet set. When choosing the paint, curtaining, and upholstery in your bedroom, it’s not a good idea to use the base color again as the room will have a rather boring feel.
However, once you have identified the main base color, you can move on to the other supporting colors. It’s time to give them some shine!
Using a beautiful cherry blossom fabric for a duvet cover, the base color is similar to K4166 CAMEL from the Kovi upholstery line. Now you know what fabric matches the first base color, you can set it aside for an accent color later.
2. Second Base Color
The second most used color in the duvet set is silvery white, typical of white voile fabric. For this color, I’d like to choose a soft sheen white, making me think of a satin enamel white paint for the furniture. That’s right; we’re going all out on this design project!
3. Three Accent Colors
Next, it’s time to choose three accent colors in the duvet set. The first accent color is in the heart of the white flowers, and it’s a soft blush or peach hue. I found this plain upholstery fabric KL023 Sable fairly close in tone.
My next accent color is a deep gray, which I found as K4104 SLATE. This is quite a dark color, so I’ll use it sparingly as I don’t want the room to be overly dark.
The final accent color is cinnamon-toned brown, which you see on the brighter side of the branches of the pattern. A good match is the R9503 Cognac Premium Quality Genuine Leather Hide from Europe. While it is on sale now, it’s still quite pricey. Therefore, I also found E9745 Tan, which is fairly close in tone, but a lot cheaper since it’s faux leather.
Note: While these are all plain colors, I simply use the colors as a way to remind myself of the tones in the duvet set. I don’t have to use them in the fabric selections. Rather, consider them as samples if you go shopping to match tones.
Finding the Basics to Balance the Duvet Set
Okay, it’s time to go shopping! (#yayshopping)!
The Walls of Your Room
When designing your bedroom, it’s important to choose a suitable wall color. Don’t skimp on this, and don’t go crazy with loud patterns or accents if you’re not ready for this. Remember, the duvet set won’t last a million years, so choose a paint that will also fit other similar colored sets in the future.
In this instance, we painted three walls a soft silvery gray. To match this, we also chose a curtain rod that is silver, with silver spiral end caps and matching silver curtain hooks or hold-backs.
The fourth wall is an accent wall, so here, we opted for a brave move with a paint color to match the sable tone in the flowers of the duvet set. For a bit of accent, we added a texturizing powder to the paint, giving the paint a rustic finish. After the initial base coat, we added rough coats with the textured paint at perpendicular angles to create a parchment feel to the wall.
Using a silver accent paint, some basic dry brushing, and careful wrist pressure, we dusted the ridges of the sable color with a little silver to antique the wall. The result? A glowing wall that complements the silvery white walls beautifully. (#soinlove).
Finding a stencil that matches the cherry blossom pattern of the duvet set, we added a few stenciled blossoms on the accent wall, cheekily running one branch with blossoms onto the adjoining white wall.
The Flooring of Your Room
We were lucky with the floor as my friend had a dark gray carpet still in good condition in her bedroom. To match the dark-toned floor, we added an accent rug in a salt-and-pepper finish with a deliciously sink-in feeling for those barefoot mornings.
Top Tip: When designing any room’s decor scheme, always have your flooring as the darkest toned element, followed by the walls, and finally the ceiling. If your floor isn’t the darkest tone of your color scheme, you will feel like you are floating away.
The Ceiling of Your Room
In this case, my friend’s knotted pine ceiling boards were a problem as they were darker than the walls. So we simply ran the white wall paint onto the ceiling boards, painting the knotted pine a pale wash by diluting the wall paint slightly.
To add that special element, we stenciled the cherry blossoms in a faded wreath design around the central light fitting. It’s these little elements that make a room truly special.
The Soft Furnishings for Your Bedroom
After all the surfaces that needed painting were handled, we were ready to go shopping online for soft furnishings like curtains and upholstery fabric for the ottoman and wingback chair in the reading corner my friend so desired.
Since these elements can be replaced without breaking the bank, you can afford to be a little braver here. It’s time to play with those colors you identified earlier.
The Window Treatment
For the windows, we opted for Roman blinds in E9362 Birch, which carried on the “twig” theme of the duvet set. The off-white background tastefully complemented the walls and brought more light into the space.
The twig pattern is an ideal match to the duvet design, bringing in a second pattern without overpowering the main theme. To soften it up a little, we added some voluminous drapes in a dark gray to match the twigs on the Roman blinds and also on the duvet set. The E7751 Wind Chime is an ideal choice in 100% polyester durable velvet.
Upholstered Elements
The headboard was upholstered to match the gray velvet, and since the velvet is 30,000 times rub-rated, it’s a hard-wearing treatment for the headboard. Because the velvet is also soft, we made two large-sized bolster pillows with tufted detail.
We finally got to use the camel microfiber upholstery that we matched the main base color of the duvet set to. It makes for a stunning bit of warmth to upholster the wingback chair in this for my friend’s reading nook. For the ottoman, we decided to use the same microfiber in a slate gray with the camel color as piping to bring some structure to the overall look.
Accessories for the Room
Finally, once you’ve got all the basics, you can accessorize your room in appropriate detail. A warm rust-colored set of candles on the dressing table nicely contrasted the camel-colored duvet and chair.
A rust-colored pillow on the chair added a little pizzazz, while the silver window accessories were picked up in matching silver knobs for the dressing table drawers and closet handles.
The Final Scheme
When you have brightly colored curtains or bold patterns in your home, it’s best to go with a plain duvet set that matches this. Yet, if you want to create a stunning decor scheme, you can do so by first getting the duvet set, identifying the main colors, and planning from the floor up to the ceiling.
For the best decorating advice, from colors to textures and also patterns, speak to the Kovi consultants today!